[Victory : Official Weekly Bulletin of the Office of War Information. V. 4, No. 15]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]
BULLETIN
OFFICIAL WEEKLY PUBLICATION OF THE OFFICE OF WAR INFORMATION
WASHINGTON, D. C.
APRIL 14, 1943
VOLUME .4, NUMBER 15
Allies Occupy Port of Sousse, Continue Drive on Northward
More Than 20,000 Axis Prisoners Taken
In 12 Days of Heavy Fighting
The Battle of Tunisia appears to be entering its final phase. Occupation of Sousse by the British Eighth Army and capture of Kairouan by the Americans has clamped Axis forces into the tight northeast pocket of Tunis-Bizerte.
Sousse, last Axis-held supply port on the Tunisian east coast, was taken on Monday morning by a victorious Eighth Army that had covered 46 miles in 24 hours. Rear-guard opposition was light, and heavy mine fields were penetrated successfully.
The capture of Kairouan, about 50 miles west of Sousse, was announced Monday morning by Gen. Eisenhower’s headquarters, along with other important advances made in the mountains west of Sousse and west of the Tunis-Bizerte triangle. It is north of Sousse, at Enfida-ville, that Rommel is expected to make his stand, if he makes a stand at all before joining Von Arnim.
Two Ports Left
The capture, by the Allies of Gabes, Sfax, and Sousse leaves the Axis forces in Tunisia with only two supply ports— Tunis and Bizerte. This, of course, gives the Axis the advantage of fighting on short, interior lines. But the advantage to the Allies is also considerable, as there are now only two supply ports to be watched. Allied planes, in their systematic destruction of the enemy’s supply lines, can concentrate on these two ports as never before.
Obviously, Rommel was really moving. Mahares, Sfax, and Sousse were abandoned with little attempt made to hold
them; in some sectors, Rommel’s flight has been so fast that he has not even had time to plant the usual mine fields to cover his retreat. But the British Eighth Army has been moving almost as fast in pursuit, forward elements pushing hard to maintain a fierce and harassing contact with the Afrika Korps’ rear guard of tanks and infantry. Since-April 6, when the great drive up the coast was started, the British Eighth Army alone has taken more than 10,000 prisoners.
The overall total of Axis prisoners taken has been estimated by headquar-
ters at better than 20,000. These 20,000, captured in the twelve days of fighting preceding the fall of Sfax, have included both Italians and Germans. In announcing the capture of Italian General Alberto Mannerini and his entire staff, the Allied Command said Mannerini’s motor transport had been commandeered by the Germans in their retreat and he had been left immobilized. When Allied troops on Thursday reached his field headquarters, he and his staff were waiting to be taken prisoner. Mannerini was formerly head of the Axis Sahara Command and was one of Italy’s most prominent colonial fighters.
Americans, British Join
The battlefronts and battle objectives in North Africa’are much clearer than they were a few weeks ago. Ever since the junction of thi U. S. Second Army Corps and the British Eighth Army, the Allies have been abl&.to work together, smashing at Rommerfrom the north, south, and center.
The junction was effected during the (.Continued on pa&e 409)
’’Who Would Have Thought This Stuff Would Ever Be Useful To Us.”
—Two-column mats are available.
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April 14, 1943
In This Iss ue . . .
Page
The War Last Week____________________________401
Norwegian Accomplishments Cited______________402
War Loan Must Have Support of Public________403
The President Last Week______________________404
War Wages and Labor
NWLB Strengthens Stabilization_______________405
War Agriculture
Estimated Winter Wheat Production___________406
Workers From Jamaica_________________________406
Home Canning Supplies________________________407
War Prices and Rents
Retail Control Broadened_____________________408
Vegetable Pack Pricing Completed____________409
War Rationing
Consumer Questions Answered__________________410
Rationing Reminders________________________ 411
Courts and Black Markets_____________________411
War Manpower
Shipbuilding Goal Threatened_________________412
OCD Aids Manpower Effort_____________________413
Selective Service ᵥ
New Dependency System Set Up_________________414
Appointments, Resignations_________________ 414
Congress Last Week__________________________415
Red Cross Dietitian Aides____________________415
War Facts__________________________________ 416
War Production
Record Steel Output Expected_________________417
Priorities__J_______________________________ 418
War Transportation
Inland Waterway Use Increased________________419
OCD and Fire Protection______________________420
Civil Service Jobs___________________________420
War Releases____________________________ 421—423
Entertainment for Troops Abroad______________424
EDITOR’S NOTE
The material in VICTORY BULLETIN is prepared from releases of OWI and other Federal agencies and statements by Government officials. This material has been supplied to the press. Articles in this Bulletin may be reprinted or used by speakers without special permission, and the editor asks only that when excerpts are used their original meaning be preserved.
OFFICIAL BULLETIN of the Office of War Information. Published weekly by the Office of War Information. Printed at the United States Government Printing Office.
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Norwegian Accomplishments Cited On Anniversary of Nazi Invasion
OWI Points to Part Played by Free Norwegians
In United Nations Fight Against Axis
In testimony to the part 20,000 Free Norwegians and 1,000,000 Americans of Norwegian descent are playing in the fight against the Axis, the Office of War Information last week called attention to three major Norwegian accomplishments. The OWI statement was issued on April 9, the third anniversary of the invasion of Norway.
The first accomplishment to which the OWI pointed was the rescue of the Norwegian merchant marine from the Nazis. With the exception of those vessels captured by the Nazis in their surprise attack on Norway, the entire merchant marine of that country went -over to the United Nations immediately after the Nazi invasion in 1940. Not a single vessel complied with the order broadcast by the Nazis directing Norwegian ships at sea to proceed to Axis ports.
*
Carry United Nations Cargo
This fleet included some of the most modern vessels afloat. Under the direction of the Norwegian Shipping and Trade Mission it has been carrying cargoes for the United Nations. During 1941 and 1942 England supplied Norway with 13 new ships and 6 old ones to replace in part torpedoed Norwegian vessels. Under a Lend-Lease agreement with the United States last July, arrangements were made to further replace Norwegian shipping losses. Two American ships have been chartered for operation under the Norwegian flag for the duration. Three more are being chartered this month and in May another three ships will also be turned over to the Norwegians.
»At the time Norway fell to the Nazis, there were 24,000 Norwegian seamen on the high seas. Every one of these seamen joined the United Nations at war. Since then 4,500 have transferred to the Norwegian armed forces and 2,000 have gone down with ships torpedoed by the Axis.
Air Force School Set Up
The second Norwegian accomplishment cited by the OWI was the establishment of the Royal Norwegian Air Force Training School at Little Norway, Canada. The school accommodates 1,000 trainees and it is supported by income
from the Norwegian merchant marine. Many graduates of the school are now serving at Norwegian bases in Iceland and Great Britain. Norwegian fliers in Great Britain participate in the daily raids over Axis-held territory.
The OWI also pointed to the accomplishments of Norwegian-Americans on the home front. One Norwegian-American organization, the Sons of Norway, alone accounted for the purchase of a quarter of a million dollars’ worth of War Bonds up to February 1943. In addition, Norwegian-Americans have been especially active in Red Cross and OCD work.
Within 10 days after the fall of Norway, Norwegian-Americans had organized Norwegian Relief. In 3 years this organization with a staff of three paid workers in Chicago, has collected over a million dollars in cash and clothing. In Brooklyn, the home of 34,000 Norwegian-Americans, Norwegian Relief chapters have raised $304,000 to take care of seamen on leave in America.
New Drive Begins
Norwegian Relief began a drive last week in Norwegian Lutheran Churches in America to bring the total collections up to $3,000,000. Another drive will be launched on May 17, Norway’s Independence Day. Among the directors of Norwegian Relief are J. A. Aasgaard, Bishop of the Norwegian Lutheran Church in America; Henry Holt, Lieutenant Governor of North Dakota, and former Governor A. C. Preus of Minnesota.
President Roosevelt, presenting a 173-foot sub chaser to the Royal Norwegian Navy, summed up American appreciation of Norwegian and Norwegian-American valor and value in this war, in the following words:
“The story of Norway since the conquest shdws that though a free democracy may be slow to realize its danger, it can be heroic when aroused. At home, the Norwegian people have silently resisted the invaders’ will with grim endurance. Abroad, Norwegian ships and Norwegian men have rallied to the cause of the United Nations. And their assistance to that cause has been out of all proportion to their small numbers.”
April 14, 1943
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New War Loan Drive Must Enlist
Support of General Public
Campaign Calls for More Bond Buyers
As Well as Increased Purchases
Responsibility for the success of the Second War Loan Drive which began on April 12 rests largely with the general public, the^Office of War Information declared this week. The drive cannot be considered a success unless the American people put aside for future use a very considerable proportion of the increased spending power which they will have during 1943. The OWI pointed out that since the national income is expected to be approximately 135 billion dollars, the public can easily meet its part of the quota of 13 billion dollars by greater participation in system savings plans. Both the number of bond buyers and the amount of bonds purchased must be increased during the coming months, the OWI said.
Yardstick Presented
As a yardstick to measure individual ability to purchase War Bonds, the OWI pointed to the warning voiced by President Roosevelt in his message to Congress April 27, 1942.
“Every dime and dollar not vitally needed for absolute necessities should go into War Bonds and Stamps to add to the striking power of our armed forces,” the President declared. “If these purchases are to have a material effect in restraining price increases they must be made out of current income. Jn almost every individual case they should be big enough to mean rigid self denial, a substantial reduction for most of us in the scale of expenditure that is comfortable and easy for us. We cannot fight this war, we cannot exert our maximum effort on a spend-as-usual basis. We cannot have all we want, if our soldiers and sailors are to have all they need.”
The OWI pointed out that every dollar invested in War Bonds is a dollar of potential spending transferred from the present, when It is not needed, to the future when it can be used to help stimulate business and to create jobs. The 8 billion dollars invested in bonds between January 1 and November 30, 1942, represents a post-war purchasing power of perhaps 9 billion dollars. Held to maturity these bonds will be worth 10 billion dollars.
In regard to the offering of Government securities to the general public, Secretary Morgenthau recently summed up the Treasury’s attitude with these pertinent remarks: “We could borrow all the money from the bank; our credit is excellent. But for a variety of reasons, economic and social, this is also undesirable. One reason is that we would then sacrifice what wc believe to be our -greatest dam against inflation. Another is that this is a people’s war, and the people should finance it. Our experience in the past has proved that the people want to finance it. The sales of Savings Bonds have mounted constantly since Pearl Harbor.
“The redemption of bonds, about which there have been many rumors, has been relatively small. In March, because taxes had to be paid, redemptions were at a peak of 131 million dollars; but during this same month the sale of 954 million dollars in Savings Bonds established a record which has been surpassed in only 3 months since Pearl Harbor.” Accelerate Pay-Roll Drive
To increase the number of bond buyers the Treasury has accelerated its Pay-Roll Savings Plan Drive. By March 1943 more than 175,000 firms and Government agencies had adopted the Pay-Roll Savings Plan. More than 25 million workers in these firms were buying bonds. Their total investment was nearly 9 percent of their monthly earnings and more than 6 percent of the gross pay roll of
they give Their lives—
YOU LEND YOUR MONEY
This is the slogan of the Second War Loan Drive in which an attempt will be made to outdo the good results achieved last December. In December die public was asked initially to invest 9 billion dollars in Victory and freedom. The final returns topped 12.9 billion dollars. Now the goal is 13 billion dollars—with the objective that of reaching every American citizen who has funds available for investment in the best securities in the world, die obligations of the United States of America.
these firms. The Treasury envisions a goal of 90 percent of the workers participating in the purchase of at least 10 percent of the gross pay roll.
To increase the number of bond buyers in rural areas, the County War Boards of the Department of Agriculture are being used to reach every farmer. These War Boards have adopted the slogan “Make Every Market Day Your Bond Day.” The object of the campaign is to have farmers put part of their income into bonds as they receive it. In Wisconsin in a single week, the County War Boards reached 95,000 farmers and signed two-thirds of this number to pledges totalling more than $4,000,000 in bonds.
Mr. Morgenthau created in March the United States Treasury War Finance Committee to integrate the activities of the Victory Fund Committee and the War Savings Staff during the April drive. ■ The Presidents of the 12 Federal Reserve banks serve as chairmen of a War Finance Committee in their respective districts, with full authority to direct the April drive. Both the Victory Fund Committee and the War Savings organization are represented on this committee, and the forces of each are integrated in the Treasury financing program.
In this Second War Loan the Treasury will borrow during the month of April 13 billion dollars. Of this, 8 billion dollars will come from nonbank investors, and the balance from banking sources, including increased weekly offerings of Treasury bills. This money which is needed to back up our armed forces will be raised through the continuing sale of War Savings Bonds, tax savings notes, Treasury bills, and the offering of a number of new Treasury issues designed for every class and type of investor.
FEBRUARY INCOME
OVER 10 BILLION
Income payments to individuals in February aggregated 10,428 million dollars, Secretary of Commerce Jesse Jones reported last week. This represented an increase of 29 percent over the 8,094 million dollars paid out in the same month of last year and was 96 percent above the February total for pre-war 1939.
February 1943 income payments were below the January figure of 10,725 million dollars, but the decline was of less than usual seasonal proportions. After allowance for seasonal influences, the Commerce Department’s index of total income payments advanced sharply from 196.2 in January (revised) to 200.8 in February.
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April 14, 1943
The President Last Week..
Executive Order Sets Steps For Economic Stabilization
President Tells Agencies to "Hold the Line” Against Upward Spiral of Prices
The President’s “hold-the-line” Executive Order, issued late last Thursday, set down clearly and specifically the steps that must be taken to maintain the basis of our economic stabilization.
Increases in wages, salaries, prices and profits—no matter how justifiable when viewed apart from their effect on the Nation’s economy—tend to undermine this basis of stabilization, the President said. But in spite of the pressure of certain economic groups, the “upward spiral of prices” must not be allowed to continue. Inflation, which was slowed up by the Economic Stabilization Act of Octobei*2,1942, must be stopped, he said.
“The only way to hold the line,” the President stated, “is to stop trying to find justifications for not holding it here or not holding it there.”
Specific Directions Given
On the price front, the order read, “all items affecting the cost of living are to be brought under control,” and those prices that are found to be excessively high, inequitable or unfair are to be reduced. No further price increases are to be sanctioned unless imperatively required by law, and adjustments in the price relationships between different commodities will be permitted only if such adjustments can be made without increasing the general cost of living.
On the wage front, there are to be no further increases in wage rates or salary scales beyond the Little Steel formula, except where clearly necessary to correct substandards of living. The Chairman of the War Manpower Commission is authorized to forbid employees’ moving from one job to another for higher pay, unless such moves would actually aid in the prosecution of the war.
The order also asked railroads and public utilities to hold or reduce their rates to agree with the Economic Stabilization Act, asked Congress to consider new tax legislation to siphon off the Nation’s excess purchasing power, and asked all Americans “to tax ourselves more, to spend less, and save more.” The
powers and authorities of Economic Stabilization Director Byrnes were redefined, to provide for the consistent administration of the order. Mr Byrnes is authorized and directed to take such action and to issue such directives under the authority of the Stabilization Act as he deems necessary to stabilize the national economy, to maintain and increase production and to aid in the effective prosecution of the war.
The* President said that last week’s action had been indicated for some time because of the “continued pressure for increased wages and increased prices,” but that he had waited because of the congressional controversy over whether he had the authority to place ceiling prices on certain commodities at existing levels and because of the Bankhead bill controversy over whether subsidy payments to farmers could legally be included in deciding whether a price had reached the parity level.
In vetoing the Bankhead bill last week, the President had expressed his views on this question. But since the bill has in the meantime been sent back to committee—and since it might be weeks or even months before it is reported out again—the President said he could not wait. Waiting might have permitted a continuance of the upward swing of prices, he said.
POST-WAR BUILDING PLANS ASKED
Post-war public construction is being projected here and there but “taking the country as a whole, very little has been done to translate paper proposals into steel, stone, concrete—and jobs,” Maj. Gen. Philip B. Fleming, Federal Works Administrator, declared last week.
“This is the next step that must be taken,” General Fleming told representatives of labor, business, and Government at a dinner meeting at St. Paul, Minn. “Whether it is to be directed by the Federal Government, or by the States and municipalities, is less important than that it should be done, and done now.
President Opens War Bond Drive
Sells First of Bonds
To Raise $13,000,000,000
President Roosevelt last week opened the $13,000,000,000 Second War Loan Drive by personally selling bonds to the White House staff and calling upon the public to follow the slogan “They give their lives—we lend our money.”
The drive formally opened this Monday. The President and Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau, however, got together with the White House staff to do a little advance selling.
“This is just a small cross-section of the White House staff,” the President said of the group gathered around him, “but this is like a great many other American houses throughout the country—most of us have got some members of the family in the fighting forces, and we back home are trying to do our bit, too. We subscribe.”
Messenger Buys First Bond
While news reel cameras stood by, the President sold the first bond for $18.75 to John Pye, an elderly Negro messenger who was Mr. Roosevelt’s chauffeur when he was Assistant Secretary of the Navy and who has been in the White House since 1933.
Last week the President also:
Said he had no plans for nominating Mayor LaGuardia of New York for a commission in the Army;
Accepted “with regret” the resignation of Thomas Kennedy, secretary and treasurer of the United Mine Workers, from the War Labor Board;
Set up a committee to attack problems resulting from over-population due to war activities in certain areas;
Asked Congress to appropriate $5,-949,550 for the Office of Civilian Defense during fiscal 1944.
PARK SERVICE TO AID ALCAN SETTLEMENT
President Roosevelt has authorized the National Park Service to assist the War Department in making a study to insure orderly development along the Alaska portion of the new Canadian-Alaskan Military Highway, Secretary of Interior Ickes announced last week. It is expected that the Canadian Government will make a similar study along the Canadian portion.
April 14, 1943
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^ai^Woges ànc/\£"otor . . ;
War Labor Board Strengthens Wage Stabilization Program
Agency Begins Reorganization Necessitated By President’s "Hold-the-Line” Order
Within two hours after the President had issued his “Hold-the-Line” Executive Order last week, the National War Labor Board strengthened its defense of the anti-inflation front by wiring its Regional Boards to approve no wage increases except those warranted under the Little Steel formula.
The President had said: “There are to be no further increases in wage rates or salary scales beyond the Little Steel formula, except where clearly necessary to correct substandards of living.” Regional Boards had already been asked to determine substandard wages on an area basis.
The NWLB met less than an hour after the issuance of the Executive Order on the night of April 8. It immediately began the reorganization made necessary by the changes wrought in the wage stabilization program. It notified all its regional boards, commissions and agencies that all decisions involving wages reached prior to 7:30 p. m. that night were valid but that all pending and future cases would be subject to the more stringent regulations.
Regulations Stringent
Just how stringent the new regulations are was made clear at a press conference the following day after the full Board returned from a White House conference with Economic Stabilization Director Byrnes.
At this conference Chairman William H. Davis said that it is “very clear” that the Board no longer has authority to grant increases to eliminate inequalities or gross inequities.
A high percentage of the more than 15,000 cases now pending before the Board will be affected by this change. Accordingly, the Board issued instructions to its Regional Boards to return applications immediately to all employers and unions who have requested approval of wage and salary increases on the basis of inequalities and gross inequities. The authority to grant increases in such cases had been given the
Board under Executive Order 9250 of October 3, 1942.
Mr. Davis agreed with a statement by Dean Morse that the War Labor Board “will remain the closest agency to the whole labor and wage problems of the country. As it becomes familiar with those problems, there will, of course, be a responsibility resting upon it to inform the Director of those problems, leaving it up to him to decide ... by issuing Directives for the working out of such problem cases.”
Exemptions Clarified
Employers with fewer than nine workers will be exempt under the new order, Mr. Davis told the press conference. Employers can also continue to make wage adjustments in the rates of individual employees for promotions, reclassifications, or for merit within established rate ranges as provided in the Board’s General Order No. 5, which was issued following the October 3 Executive Order. Mr. Davis announced that these matters had been taken up by the full Board with Mr. Byrnes and been approved by him.
The text of the telegram, signed by Mr. Davis and approved unanimously by the Board, which was sent on April 8 to the twelve Regional Boards, to industry commissions, and to other agencies to which the NWLB had delegated authority, follows:
“First, continue to prepare as heretofore all your cases. Secondly, approve no further wage increases whatever except those that clearly come within the 15 percent limitation of the Little Steel formula. Thirdly, all final wage decisions or rulings which you have made up to seven thirty p. m. Eastern War Time, April 8th, and which do not require prereview may be validly issued to the parties and those which require pre-review should be sent to us as heretofore. Further directions will come in a few days.” NWLB “pre-review” is required for Regional Board decisions which are not unanimous. Such decisions are sent to the National Board and are released to
the parties ten days later, if the NWLB takes no action.
The Wage and Hour Division, at the request of the Board, instructed its offices not to issue any rulings pending further instructions.
Formula Explained
The “Little Steel” formula set a ceiling of 15 percent over the wage levels prevailing on January 1,1941. From that date to May 1942, shortly after the President’s “cost of living” message to Congress, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ national cost-of-living index had risen 15 percent.
Under the Little Steel formula, the WLB grants general wage increases only to groups of employees who have not received a 15 percent increase in their straight-time rates since January 1,1941. It is not applicable to individual workers.
In computing the 15 percent, the Board does not include certain types of adjustments, such as pay in lieu of vacations, merit increases or promotions, or the increase in average earnings that result from the hiring of a greater proportion of higher paid employees.
Analysis of Wage Cases
Informed that the Senate had adopted a resolution introduced by Senator Byrd of Virginia directing the WLB to submit to the Senate an analysis of wage increases granted by the Board since its organization, Chairman Davis said:
“The Board has issued a public release on every decision made since it was established by the President 15 months ago. It welcomes, however, this opportunity to disclose the effect of its policies in more condensed form to the Senate.”
HOUSING OCCUPANCY RULES BROADENED
Eligibility requirements for occupancy of war housing have been broadened by the National Housing Agency to include otherwise qualified war workers who have moved into critical housing areas since July 1, 1941, and whose efficiency is impaijed by temporary or makeshift living conditions, NHA Administrator Blandford announced this week.
Previously, eligibility had been limited to those workers in this category who had moved into the locality within 12 months of the date of their lease or purchase of war housing facilities. The NHA’s present action therefore extends eligibility to workers whose in-migration occurred between July 1, 1941, and April 1942, and who are not now adequately housed.
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April 14, 1943
War
Reporting Board Estimates Winter Wheat Crop
Millers Asked to Produce More Flour To Meet 1943 Requirements
The Agriculture Department’s estimate of 1943 winter wheat production is 558,5514)00 bushels, compared to the 1942 production of 703,253,000 bushels. Since there is a surplus of wheat, the smaller crop is not expected to have an adverse effect on the food situation.
The first crop production estimate of the year said the condition of the winter wheat crop on April 1 indicated an average yield this year of 14.9 bushels per acre, compared with 18.3 bushels an acre on the seeded average last year. The Crop Reporting Board pointed out that crop prospects in general have been impaired by unfavorable weather conditions during March.
Production Plans Told
According to a Farm Security Admin-' istration survey FSA borrowers are planning this year to surpass their 1942 record increases in the production of waressential crops.
There are 463,941 family-size farmers who are FSA borrowers, constituting 7.6 percent of the country’s farmers. And these farmers believe that with the aid of FSA loans and the assistance of FSA supervisors, they can top last year’s production by 20 to 72 percent.
Last year these farmers increased their 1942 output from 20 to 106 percent over 1941, and accounted for a substantial proportion of the Nation’s total increases in five major crops—milk, dry beans, eggs, chickens, and peanuts.
More Plour Asked
The Nation’s wheat flour milling industry has been asked by the War Food Administration to increase its 1943 production 25 percent over 1942 to meet greater nutritional requirements, the Department of Agriculture announced.
The request was made at a meeting of the Administration’s milling industry food advisory committee, at which Government officials pointed to the Nation’s increasing dependency upon wheat flour as a major nutrition source, and a special committee was appointed to tackle the problem of increasing the use of flour
in view of the wartime limitations on such ingredients as shortening. Committees also will be named to study the industry’sneeds for critical repair, maintenance and replacement equipment, materials and ingredients necessary for packaging and processing, and for additional manpower. _
Farm Machinery Exports
Provisions applying to thé export of farm machinery and equipment were changed last week by the War Production Board.
Quotas of farm machinery and equipment that may be shipped to North Africa to meet immediate needs in French Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia are now established. This action, taken on the recommendation of the armed forces, bases the quotas on a percentage of one-half the total net shipping weight of the 1939 and 1940 shipments to the countries mentioned. Approximately 80 percent of the quotas will be repair parts.
Canadian quota percentages for certain items are increased on the basis of the number of units exported to that country in 1940.
The amount of farm machinery and equipment and repair parts saved by this reduction will be held by the Board of Economic Warfare in a reserve pool to meet emergency needs in other countries.
Seed for Allies
Deliveries of agricultural commodities for shipment to the Allied Nations during February included more than 12 million pounds of seed for use in replanting and restoring Allied farmland liberated from Axis domination, the Department of Agriculture said.
Though purchases for Allied and other uses declined about 30 percent in February, improvement in shipping conditions permitted an increase of 47 percent in deliveries for shipment. The largest food requirements of the Allies, as reflected by deliveries by the Food Distribution Administration, continued to be for pork, dairy products, eggs, fats, and oils.
Workers Recruited From Jamaica
Women, Young People
Needed for Farms
Continuing its attack on the problem of farm labor, the Department of Agriculture announced that an agreement has been signed with the government of Jamaica providing for the importation into the United States of up to 10,-000 Jamaican agricultural workers. Recruitment of the workers is expected to start in Jamaica next week.
The Jamaican workers are being brought in, the announcement said, not to displace U. S. farm workers or to reduce previously established wage rates, but to relieve farm labor shortages in critical areas. They will be available for work in the West, Middle West, and East, and housed in farm labor supply centers. When their work contracts expire, they will be returned to Jamaica.
The conditions under which the Jamaicans will be recruited, transported and employed here are similar to the conditions governing the same kind of agreement recently negotiated with Mexico and the Bahamas.
After-School Workers
How to use young people successfully In farm work is told in a free booklet just issued by the Children’s Bureau of the U. S. Department of Labor—“Guides to Successful Employment of Non-Farm Youth in Wartime Agriculture.”
Women’s Eand Army
Plans for recruiting and placing a Women’s Land Army of about 60,000 city and town women were announced by the Agriculture Departments War Food Administration. These women will become part of the U. S. Crop Corps. The total enrollment job for the Crop Corps is an additional 3,500,000 workers this season, including transported farm workers, businessmen and high school youth of the Victory Farm Volunteers.
In all, it is expected that about 360,000 women will be enrolled for farm work as soon as arrangements are completed for placing them. The plans call for recruiting about 300,ooh women for short-time emergency jobs on farms—women who can spare weekends, a few days or a few weeks for the job of producing and harvesting food. Of the 60,000 women in the Women’s Land Army, about 10,000w are expected to enroll for year-round farm work and about 50,000 for seasonal work for one month or more. ,
April 14, 1943
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407
Seed Potato Rules Revised by OPA
War Boards to Help Farmers Secure Necessary Supplies '
Instructions which will enable USDA War Boards to aid farmers in securing adequate supplies of seed potatoes and at the same time protect consumer supplies of table-stock potatoes were released last week by the Department of Agriculture.
Department officials urge any farmer or dealer having difficulty in purchasing stocks of seed potatoes for planting purposes to contact his County War Board immediately. If the potatoes are needed for planting purposes, the War Board will issue a certificate permitting the farmer or dealer to pay up to a 75-cent premium for the potatoes.
The instructions were issued to supplement recent measures taken by the Office of Price Administration to regulate the purchase and use of selected seed potatoes.
One of these measures was the relaxing of the limitation on selling seed potatoes in lots of less than 50 pounds. The' 50-pound limitation, originally established in one of a series of moves designed to smash a black market of seed potatoes sold out of price control for human consumption, was withdrawn to permit retailers to sell the potatoes in any quantity as long as they are to be used for planting purposes only.
Premium Eliminated
To prevent such illegal diversion of selected seed potatoes to food the OPA eliminated—except in four named cases—the 75-cenfs-per-hundredweight premium which selected seed potatoes previously had been permitted over the table-stock potato ceilings. Also relaxed was a ruling on sales of seed potatoes by country shippers—with these shippers now permitted 24 hours, after receipt of an inspection certificate, to mail to OPA’s district or State office a copy of their invoice or other written evidence of sale.
The Army, Navy, Marines, and Lend-Lease Administration—in order to obtain much needed supplies of edible potatoes—temporarily may pay a 10-cent-per-hundredweight premium over table stock. This premium jnay be paid until May 1, provided that such table-stock potatoes are shipped prior to that date.
Glass Containers Standardized
For Commercial Canning
Over 600 Million Glass-Top Seals
To Be Produced in 1943
Standardized and simplified glass containers have been prescribed by the WPB for the commercial packaging of 21 additional food products. Previously, containers were standardized for only three commercial food products.
Approximately 90 standard glass containers are provided—a reduction of several thousand designs—and many sizes, particularly small ones, are eliminated. The common 70 millimeter (about 2.75 inches) deep screw cap is generally replaced with a 63 millimeter (about 2.58 inches) shallow cap, thereby reducing by about 30 percent the amount of steel, tin, liner and lacquer formerly used annually. It is estimated that as a result of such standardization about 860 million glass food containers—20 percent more than were made in 1941—can be made on existing equipment.
The prescribed containers are small, plain, round glass jars; plain, round quart jars, one-half to one-gallon jars, wide-mouth pails, fruit and vegetable jars, juice jars, olive bottles, cherry bottles, shortening jars, tumblers, narrow-neck round bottles, jugs, chili sauce bottles, and catsup bottles. The amendment also indirectly standardized the size of closures for standard glass containers. Home canning jars are not affected.
The food products for which such containers are standardized Include: Salad dressings (including products using salad dressing as a base), olive oil, shortenings, chocolate syrup, maple syrup, tomato catsup, chili sauce and cocktail sauce, tomato paste, tomato pulp, vinegar, fruits and vegetables and mixtures, honey, pickles and relishes, peanut butter, fruit and vegetable juices and mixtures, olives, maraschino cherries, cranberry sauce.
New Glass Lid
Roswell C. Mower, Chief of the WPB Containers Division, asked home canners to get acquainted with a steel-saving glass-top closure now being produced in quantity for the first time in the United States.
Production of 634,000,000 of these glass-top seals this year is an important part of Government’s and industry’s efforts to assure adequate supplies of jars
and tops for the anticipated record home canning program and at the same time to save as much steel as possible for military and industrial needs.
The closure is 70 mm. (about 2% inches) in diameter and will fit any standard home canning jar as well as all commercial pack screw-top jars with the same thread and mouth size. It has long been the most popular type of sealing device among Canadian home canners.
No Stamps for Sugar
Sugar for home canning of 1943 fruit crops will be available to housewives on approximately the same basis as last season, Price Administrator Brown announced—that is, no blue (processed foods) point stamps will be deducted from War Ration Book Two for sugar obtained for this purpose.
In the 1942 season, housewives applied to their local boards for allotments of sugar on the basis of one pound for each four quarts of fruit that they planned to can, and, in addition, one pound for each member of the family. Roughly the same pattern will be used for homecanning sugar allotments this year, although there will be some refinements in procedure. Formal amendments giving the details of the program will be issued within the next few days.
Pressure Canner Approved
The Department of Agriculture said that the steam pressure canner is the only method it can recommend for the canning of certain non-acid types of vegetables. In response to numerous requests by individuals and agencies interested in the canning of Victory Garden products, the Department made it clear that it can recommend only methods considered universally safe, since its published material is used in all parts of the United States.
The nonacid foods include such vegetables as beans, peas, corn, spinach, other greens, and asparagus, as well as meats. It is for these products that the Department recommends the use of a steam pressure canner. Acid products such as fruits and tomatoes, rhubarb, and pickled beets, on the other hand, can be safely canned by the boiling water-bath method.
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April 14, 1943
War Prices and'Rents . . g
Price Regulations to Cover
All Cost-of-Living Items
OPA Acting on President’s Order
With Broader Retail Control
To carry out the President’s Executive Order limiting further increases in prices or wages, OPA is now working on a plan to put specific dollar and cents retail price ceilings on all commodities entering into the cost of living.
This was revealed by the President and by Director of Economic Stabilization Byrnes at Mr. Roosevelt’s regular Friday morning press conference. So far most commodities have been under only general price ceilings established last spring, but when the OPA plan is ready, specific ceilings will be placed on many commodities, food items and others, and in a number of cases an effort will be made to reduce prices.
The basis for determining .whether a specific ceiling should be placed on any commodity will be whether the price of the commodity affects the cost of living.
Regulations Being Prepared
In line with the President’s Order, OPA Administrator Brown announced that regulations are now being made ready to bring under control the prices of wheat, cotton, fresh fish, fresh fruits (as they come into season), certain oilbearing seeds, milk for manufacturing purposes, and certain other products not now under control.
No ceiling will be ordered, he said, for those farm commodities that have not yet reached parity. Specific ceilings for fresh vegetables will be up to Food Administrator Chester Davis.,
Poods, Beverages Set
As one of the first acts under the President’s mandate to extend ceilings to all cost-of-living commodities. Price Administrator Brown authorized OPA regional offices to set maximum prices for food and beverages served by res-, taurants, cafeterias, hotels, and other eating and drinking establishments.
Simultaneously, Mr. Brown established the week from Sunday, April 4, through Saturday, April 10, as the base price period for restaurants and directed every eating and drinking place in the country to file with its local War Price
and Rationing Board a copy of each menu or price list it used during the base period. The final date for filing is May 1.
The restaurant ceilings may take the form of a “freeze,” holding charges at levels in effect last week, or they may be expressed in dollars and cents prices, establishing the maximum price which a restaurant may charge for meals or for individual dishes or beverages. If prices during the base period were “abnormally high,” ceilings may be reduced below levels of that period.
“This action is the first step to bring under price control the cost of ‘eating out’—one of the few items not yet subject to ceilings,” Mr. Brown said.
Since Americans will spend about six •billion dollars in restaurants this year— double the amount spent in 1939—the increase must be halted and unwarranted prices reduced. Price ceilings now cover 97 percent of all foods. The extension of ceilings to all cost-of-living commodities, as directed by the President, together with the stabilization of wages, now makes restaurant ceilings practical.
Increases Slight
To encourage shipments into areas where there are critical shortages of meat, OPA will authorize temporary regional adjustments in wholesale ceiling prices for beef, veal, pork, and lamb. The increased, OPA said, will cover only the cost of shipment from surplus producing areas to areas of shortage, and are not expected to be large enough or in effect long enough to require any adjustment in retail prices.
Processed Poods
Several OPA regulations were revised last week. Changes were made in the regulation covering burley tobacco prices; maximum prices for all finished rice were brought under one order, and new price adjustment methods were set up for producers and suppliers of machinery and machinery services whose products or services are essential to the war program.
A simple formula was given manufac-
NEW PROGRAM SET UP TO BALANCE PRICES
Food Administrator Davis announced a program designed to bring about a “more equitable relationship” between livestock, meat, and feed prices without increasing present meat prices to consumers. ’
The program provides for an immediate 5-cents-a-bushel increase in corn ceiling prices in surplus producing areas, an increase in the Government’s hog support prices from $13.25 to $13.75 per hundred pounds (hog prices recently hit $16), and the importation of feed from Canada and Australia.
Meat Price Squeeze
Mr. Davis said the new policy, determined with the “full concurrence” of the OPA, is intended to assure a better balance "between livestock and feed prices but without changing consumer prices. By eliminating the “squeeze” between live animal and wholesale meat prices, it is expected to combat black markets.
No immediate ceiling price on live hogs is contemplated, Mr. Davis said.*
turers of new processed food commodities, so that they can determine their maximum prices without having to apply to the OPA in Washington. This action, a part of OPA’s over-all program of simplification of regulations, is expected to eliminate uncertainties and delays and thus contribute to the effectiveness of price control.
Purniture Designs
Under a companion action, OPA provided a “group pricing” arrangement for new designs of furniture having similar changes in cost of production. If the manufacturer so desires, he may now use the new method as an alternative to the old unit-pricing method. This change also is designed to speed pricing procedure and eliminate cumbersome reports.
Wooden Matches
Last week’s OPA match order followed the recent WPB order requiring a reduction in the length of matches. Two main features of the order, expected to save the American public $2,000,000 a year, are the new cents-per-box retail ceilings set on household or “strike anywhere” matches, and the ruling that manufacturers of these matches must pack into each box about 10 percent more matches of the shorter length.
April 14, 1943
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409
Agency Completes Pricing Of 1943 Vegetable Packs Support Prices for War Foods Increased;
Truck Crop Payments Announced
4 T
Completing its pricing of the major 1943 vegetable packs, OPA has established specific dollars, and cents maximum prices per dozen cans for canned snap beans. The price levels are approximately even with those of 1942.
Since both wholesale and retail prices for canned snap beans are figured on a fixed mark-up basis, there should be no increase in retail prices, OPA said. A Department of Agriculture program which absorbed an increase in the farmer’s price for beans made it possible to maintain 1942 prices at the packer level and Still meet the requirements of Congress in respect to the return to the farmer.
Onions, Potatoes Up
Maximum prices on dry onions and white potatoes of the late 1942 crop will be 10 cents higher for sales during May and June than they were during April, OPA announced. This move is designed to spread available supplies evenly over the next 3 months, as in the absence of such adjustment the higher April price would have encouraged growers to sell as much as possible of their supply in April.
Vegetables Exempted
The seven fresh vegetables on which prices recently were frozen have been exempted from OPA price control in sales by farmers to country shippers and to domestic consumers, but only in cases where the farmer’s sale of all foods in a month does not exceed $75. This is in line with established OPA policy, and the amendments specifically provide that when the farmer performs the functions of the country shipper, he remains under price control.
Specific Ceilings Set
Brought under specific price control last week were several items which had formerly been exempt, or had been covered by other pricing methods.
Packaged skim milk sold for human consumption has been put under specific dollars and cents maximum prices—to assure the housewife that she will be able to purchase package skim milk (used primarily in southern States for bread
and biscuits) at levels generally no higher than she had been paying previously. Specific maximums were also set for. manufacturers of paperboard plates and dishes, wood dishes, spoons and forks, and liquid-tight containers, and, in another action, edible gelatin sold in containers of 25 pounds or more was given specific maximums. Bland apple syrup, a new product developed by the Agriculture Department’s Research Laboratory, has been removed from all price control, as there is no standardization of operations on which to base costs. This syrup was not commercially manufactured until the last year.
Support Prices Set
Increased support prices for dry beans, dry peas, peanuts, soybeans and flaxseed were announced by the War Food Administration, and payments for Irish potatoes and truck crops were announced for that part of the production between 90«and 110 percent of farm goals.
No change is being made in the support prices for sweet potatoes and grain sorghums because prices for these crops were announced after the proposal for incentive payments was questioned. Prices at the new levels will be supported through Government commodity loan and purchase programs.
Frozen Asparagus
In another move to obtain the maximum harvest of asparagus this year, the OPA and the Department of Agriculture announced that processor price ceilings for quick-frozen asparagus will be raised to make it possible for growers to receive prices in line with production costs. A similar action was announced recently for canning asparagus.
The OPA will allow an increase of 1 cent a pound in the price paid to growers by processors, in all States except Washington, Oregon and California where the increase allowed will be 1^ cents per pound.
Department of Agriculture officials say the increase will adjust processor ceiling prices so that a fair price ihay be expected by the grower for asparagus, a vegetable high in production labor costs.
ALLIES TAKE SOUSSE: DRIVE NORTH
(.Continued from page-401)
afternoon of April 7 (Wednesday), after the decisive defeat of Rommel’S counterattacks in the Wadi Akarit area. Contact between the two Allied armies was made about 15 miles east of El Guettar on the Gafsa-Gabes road, which indicates that the British swung inland some distance in order to meet the American force.
Early Wednesday morning, when it became evident that the enemy could not maintain any position in the Wadi Akarit area north of Oudref, Allied mobile forces began moving forward. Wadi Akarit is a deep, natural tank barrier (Wadi means dried-up river bed) which afforded Rommel an excellent defensive position, but the Allied forces pushed their drive relentlessly, and by afternoon the British and American forces had made contact.
Aerial Tactics
Returning from an inspection tour, Brig. Gen. Aubry C. Strickland, commander of advanced USAAF headquarters, said that our Ninth Air Force units in the Tunisian front lines had helped “break the back” of German resistance.
The combat efficiency of our air fleet has certainly been a great factor in the Allied success. Saturday’s catch (April 10) was 26 enemy planes, including 18 of the big German air transports, shot down by U. S. Lightnings over the waters between Tunisia and Sicily. Opening the week (Monday, April 5), Lightnings shot down 18 other Axis transports, planes similar to those bagged on Saturday; and reconnaissance photos taken later in the week revealed that Monday’s total was even larger than at first supposed: more than 150 Axis planes destroyed or damaged in raids on three airfields in Sicily and four airfields in Tunisia.
From March 19, when the Maretji offensive started, until April 7, when the juncture was made between American forces and the British Eighth Army, Allied air forces in North Africa dropped more than 4 million pounds of bombs on the Axis’ most valuable bases and roads. This period covered 20 days and nights. Thus, the average daily load dumped on the Axis in this theater was 100 tons— and all this is in addition to the activity of the British desert air forces.
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April 14, 1943
OP A Presents Specific Answers
To Consumer Questions
Various Food, Shoe Rationing Problems Cleared up by Agency Statements
Detailed answers to a number of consumer questions were given out last week by the Office of Price Administration. At the same time, the OPA declared that an adequate supply of rationed foods would be made available to food research laboratories, experimental kitchens and food demonstration groups. The OPA also assured retail milk dealers that they would get replacements for worn tires on their delivery vehicles.
In answer to inquiries the OPA pointed out that soldiers who eat 10 meals or more away from Army posts, are eligible for Ration Book 2. The OPA also made it clear that shoe rationing applies only to continental United States. Consumers who wish to obtain shoes in the United States for use outside the country may apply to the district Office of the OPA or at local War Price and Rationing Boards for shoe rationing coupons. Only* people leaving the United States on war assignments or persons already , on war assignments living in the possessions or territories or in a foreign country are eligible for these coupons, the OWI said. An individual who wishes to purchase shoes for someone living outside the United States must present a written request from the person who is to receive the shoes.
Urge Fats Savings
The OPA advised housewives that ration stamps for the purchase of butter from milkmen must be surrendered to the milkman in person and at the approximate time of delivery. The stamps may not be left with notes nor can they be surrendered at the end of the month when the bill is paid. Housewives were also urged to continue turning in their waste fats to butchers. The OPA'made it clear that butchers do not receive ration coupons for the waste fats they collect.
In the announcement covering allotments of food for experimental purposes, the OPA pointed out that many food research laboratories, experimental kitchens, food demonstration groups, and others engaged in similar work are con
ducting experiments that are directly related to the Government’s food conservation program or are carrying on longtime research experiments which, it is felt, must not be interrupted at this time.
Persons or groups who require processed foods for any of these purposes may apply to their local War Price and Rationing Board for ration points, and will be given allotments according to amounts used in 1942, on the same basis as allotments are now made to industrial users. Applications to local Boards are made on OPA Form R-1308.
Milk Deliveries
The OPA declared that the inability of retail milk dealers to get replacements for worn tires on delivery vehicles has interrupted necessary milk deliveries. In the past retail milk dealers have been eligible only for recapping services „and they could not get replacements for worn tires. Their trucks have now been transferred from the “B” eligibility list to the “A” list. The latter list includes vehicles which perform the most essential services.
The OPA also issued two statements on ration points. The first of these was directed to industrial users of processed foods whose point certificates for the first allotment period were reduced in value because of their inventories of dried fruit. The OPA explained that these points will be adjusted for the second allotment period. Dried fruits, it was explained, now have no point value, and in figuring point allowances for the second allotment period, no point deductions will be made for stocks of dried fruit on hand.
In the second statement rules requiring surrender of ration points in liquidating an excess inventory of processed foods held by a wholesaler or retailer were modified.
The change was made to permit a merchant, while liquidating an excess-point inventory, to retain a point working capital, needed to help keep his assortment of processed foods balanced.
Rural Road Traffic
Continues Decline
Mileage in East Falls, FWA Survey Shows
Traffic on rural roads in the eastern rationed area showed a greater decline from normal in February than in any other month since rationing began. Public Roads Administration of Federal Works Agency reported last week.
February travel in the East was off 52 percent compared with traffic in February 1941. The February decline in the remainder of the country where rationing began December 1, 1942, was 35 percent.
“The greater reduction in the East than in the rest of the country was due to the lower value of gasoline coupons and the pleasure-driving ban,” Public Roads officials pointed out. “To cut travel 52 percent in February, much traffic normally considered essential as well as pleasure driving had to be eliminated. February is normally the month of least traffic and, therefore, the month with the largest percentage of essential travel.
Nation-Wide Decline Registered
On a Nation-wide basis, traffic had declined about 42 percent on rural roads in February compared with the volume in February 1941. It had decreased about 8 percent in February 1942.
The downward trend in traffic on rural roads began in January 1942, Public Roads Administration states. During the preceding five years, the trend had been upward. According to records of several hundred permanently installed automatic traffic recorders, the volume of traffic increased 19 percent from 1939 to 1941, inclusive.
February motor-fuel tax collections of $30,766,000 in 32 State® were 31 percent less than in February 1941 Public Roads Administration also announced. The decline in the eastern rationed States amounted to about 32 percent, and in the remaining States about 30 percent.
AUTO LIST PRICE SETS ELIGIBILITY
The manufacturer’s list price, not the local retail price, is the measure which must be used in sorting out the hardtopped cars that are available under rationing to drivers eligible for cars priced over $1,500, the Office of Price Administration said last week.
April 14, 1943
* VICTORY BULLETIN ★
411
Rationing Reminders
FOODS
Meat, fats, oils, cheeses, canned fish.—During the first four weekly periods, red stamps from War Ration Book Two become valid as follows: A stamps, March 29; B stamps, April 4; C stamps, April 11; D stamps, April 18. Each set is -worth 16 points. Validity runs to April 30.
Poultry, game, and fresh fish are not rationed. 250 varieties of rare or perishable cheese are excluded from rationing.
Sugar.—Stamp No. 12 from Book One is valid for five pounds through the end of May. Sugar for home-canning of 1943 fruit crops will be available to housewives. (Formal details will be announced this week.)
Coffee.—Stamp No. 26 is valid for one pound through April 25.
Canned goods and related food items are covered by blue coupons lettered D, E, and F, a total of 48 points for the month of April.
Dry beans, peas or lentils are point-free for use as seed.
FUEL OIL
Period 5 coupons are valid in all zones. In the 17 Eastern States and the District of Columbia, No. 5 coupons are worth 10 gallons for Class I users; 100 gallons for Class H users. In 13 Midwestern States Class I No. 5 coupons are worth 11 gallons; Class II are worth 110 gallons, except in Southern Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, Ohio, and all of Kentucky where Class I coupons are worth 10 gallons and Class II 100 gallons. The value of coupons in Washington and Oregon remains at 10 gallons for Class I users; at 100 gallons for Class n users.
Zone A: Period 4 coupon expires April 17.
Zone B: Period 4 coupon expired April 12.
Zones C and D: Period 4 coupon expired April 6.
Householders are cautioned to preserve the identity stub of their heating ration as it will be required \Vhen next winter’s rations are issued.
GASOLINE
“B” and “C” coupons expire according to dates indicated on individual books.
A-5 coupons are good for three gallons. In the 17 Eastern States and the District of Columbia validity runs to July 21; in the rest of the country, validity runs to May 21. The extension of the valid period on the East Coast will have the effect of limiting motorists who have no occupational use for their cars to 90 miles a month. Car owners in the East will be eligible for supplemental rations for necessary driving to and from work, or in connection with work. However, they must first form a car elub to carry three or more persons to work regularly.
Farmers may obtain gasoline for their tractors, engines, and other nonhighway equipment for a period of six months. Virtually all types of installation, maintenance, and repair service on essential nonportable goods are eligible for “C” rations.
TIRES
Owners of passenger cars and commercial vehicles using tires smaller than 7.50 x 20, may get their casings recapped with reclaimed rubber camelback without applying to their local War Price and Rationing Boards for certificates.
A driver with a mileage ration of more than 240 miles monthly may get new casings of the lower qualities—Grade H—when he needs replacements. Previously only those with monthly mileages over 560 could get new tires. Motorists with mileage rations between 560 and 1,000 monthly—who until now have been eligible for new casings in the lower quality bracket only—will be able to get the Grade I tires which previously were reserved for cars with a ration of 1,000 miles or more a month.
Certificates for tires and tubes may be used at any convenient time.
Farm tractor and implement tires will be recapped only with a material made almost entirely of reclaimed rubber, and replacements will not be issued for tires that are recappable. Tire dealers or persons selling or servicing farm equipment who need rear-wheel tractor tires to serve their customers will be able to get stocks for this purpose. Retail milk delivery vehicles are eligible for replacement tires when their present casings are not recappable.
SHOES
Stamp No. 17 in War Ration Book One is valid for one pair of shoes through June 15. Certain types of shoes are not rationed.
Black Market Hit
By Indictments
Brown Calls Court Actions
Hammer Blows to Chiselers
Indictment of a ring of seven meat packing concerns and their principal officers on charges of conspiracy and over-the-ceiling trafficking in meat was hailed last week by Price Administrator Brown as “the biggest hammer blow we have dealt yet to the black markets?’
Six of the seven firms indicted are owned or controlled by Peter Goias, of Chicago, Illinois, one of the defendants, who only a short time ago was a little-known liver peddler, with a modest business in livers and hearts. The seventh indicted firm served as his agent. All seven are located in the East or Middle West.
The amazing expansion of his volume of business and operations since the enactment of restrictions on beef slaughter for civilian use and the establishment of beef price ceilings last Autumn, coupled with complaints heard among competitors as to his trade methods, led to the investigation by OPA which culminated in the court actions.
“The indictment of the firms operated by or acting as agent for Goias should go a long way toward eliminating the black market in the territories in which their meat was sold,” Price Administrator Brown said. “The string of firms he controlled ranked among the first twenty independent packers in size.
“Between December 16 and February 1 last, the firms shipped 10,000,000 pounds of beef into Northern New Jersey and New York City alone.”
V-44J
—Mats available.
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April 14, 1943
ar Manpower ; \ 5 . 7* L
Labor Turnover Threatens
Ship Goal This Year
Industry Lacks Thousands of Workers; 200,000 Needed for Replacements
High rates of labor turnover in the Nation’s .shipyards are now threatening the goal of 18,000,000 tons of ships set for this year, the Maritime Commission reported last week. This vital industry lacked 70,000 workers during the first quarter of this year, and the turnover rate on a national basis amounts to 11.2 percent of the total working force, the Commission said. Of this turnover, two percent represents withdrawal df men to enter the armed forces.
During the first quarter of this year. Maritime Commission contract shipbuilding yards required more than 200,-. 000 workers to replace those who were separated from their payrolls. Replacement needs were greatest on the Pacific Coast, the total there being 122,-378, according to the Commission.
Replacement needs in other areas were: Atlantic seaboard, 41,337; Gulf Coast, 36,568; Great Lakes, 1,713. This replacement total swelled the estimated intake requirements of the shipyards to 333,695 for the first quarter of this year. Actually 262,617 workers were hired leaving a deficit of 71,078 workers from the total desired by the ship builders. The deficit was 60,854 on the Pacific Coast.
Hiring facilities of the United States Employment Service are being used to overcome the deficit, which now threatens the goal of 18,000,000 tons of ships set for this year.
Problem Worse in West
In many ship building communities, serious housing shortages have made it impossible for these areas to provide homes for as many workers as the yards could use, the War Manpower Commission reported.
The serious aspect of the turnover rates is brought into stark relief by the tabulation indicating that replacements to meet turnover alone required the employment of 201,000 new workers during the quarter in Maritime Commission contract shipbuilding yards employing 2,500 or more workers.
Here again the Pacific Coast problem was much more aggravated than the At
lantic Coast with a monthly turnover rate of 14.8 percent prevailing in West Coast yards for the quarter as compared with a 7.1 percent rate on the Atlantic Coast. The Gulf average was 10.3 percent, and the Great Lakes was 6.2 percent. Numerical preponderance of shipyard workers on the Pacific and Atlantic Coasts made the comparatively good showing of the Great Lakes of little weight in striking the national average.
To reach the increased tonnage construction goal of 1943, it was estimated that 132,799 additional workers would be required in the Maritime Commission contract yards during the first quarter. This estimate provided for expansion of personnel only and did not include the needs for replacement of those separated from payrolls. The total of the two— replacements and expansion—brought the intake requirements up to 333,695. The total intake actually was about 263,000.
More Manhours Per Unit
Not only are more men needed in shipyards, but Department of Commerce experts say that a much larger number of manhours per unit of raw material is entering into the manufacture of durable goods in wartime than in peacetime, because a greater degree of fabrication is required to produce war goods. This means that more men are needed to do the same job in the same time than before the war. And since a goal of a given number of ships in a given time has been set, the answer is more manpower.
The industries which in the war emergency are major processors of steel, for example, are those making iron and steel and their products, the machinery industries and the transportation and equipment" industries, excluding from the latter the aircraft and parts industry. These industries last year utilized, on the average, 133 manhours to fabricate a ton of steel into guns, tanks, machine tools and other steel products. This represents an increase of almost 60 percent over the 85 manhours required per ton of steel fabricated in 1939.
Procedure for Army Transfers Announced
Must Have Essential Job, Be 38, Write Request ’
In order to be transferred to an inactive status in the Enlisted Reserve Corps so that they may take essential jobs, enlisted men must have been 38 on or before last February 28, have enlisted or have been inducted on or before that date, and must request release in writing before July 1, the War Department announced last week.
The request must be submitted to the immediate commanding officer, and attached to it must be evidence in the form of a letter or statement from the prospective employer or other responsible person to the effect that the petitioner will be employed in essential industry, including agriculture, if he is released from active service in the Army.
The War Department emphasized that acceptance by the commanding officer of the application for release and evidence of employment will not be considered as a promise to release an individual. It means that the man’s request will receive prompt consideration. Before the release and transfer are effected, the commanding officer forwards this letter or statement, together with the enlisted man’s request for release, to the State Director of Selective Service of the State in which he proposes to become employed.
Final Decision
The State Director of Selective Service will return the request for release and offer of employment to the commanding officer concerned, with his recommendation as to the applicant’s release from active service. If the recommendation is favorable, the State Director of Selective S.ervice will also indicate the designation and address of the local board to which the enlisted man will report in the area in which he is to be employed. If the recommendation is unfavorable, the State Director of Selective Service will indicate his reasons on the correspondence which he returns to the commanding officer.
If the recommendation is favorable, the enlisted man will be released immediately from active service and transferred to the Enlisted Reserve Corps, unless such action will seriously affect the efficiency of the organization to which he is assigned.
April 14, 1943
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413
Landis Enlists OCD
In Manpower Battle
Tells Councils How
They Can Help
The Nation’s great network of 13,000 local defense councils can aid in campaigns to recruit essential workers for agriculture or industry, either for part-time or full-time employment, James M. Landis, director of the Office of Civilian Defense, points out in “OCD and the War Labor Supply,” an article in the latest issue of the Manpower Review, publication of the War Manpower Commission.
Mr. Landis outlined the following four ways in which defense councils and their volunteer offices can be of service to the War Manpower Commission:
Registration of persons available for farm work, and reference of these to the USES office. Volunteers already registered may be checked and reconsid-•ered for availability in this field.
Recruitment and training of volunteers for clerical assistance, survey or canvass, where conditions warrant an intensive campaign.
Recruitment of volunteers for supervision of temporary young workers in agriculture.
Development of plans with local agencies for transportation, housing and feeding of farm workers.
Cites Examples
Mr. Landis described farm labor activities carried on by a number of councils. Through efforts of the defense council of Modesto, Calif., for example, a Sunday was designated as “Peach Picking Day” and the town of 17,000 turned out en masse to pick nearly 400 tons of peaches. More fruit remained on the trees and the council declared an emergency. For the next two days Modesto stores remained closed until 1 p. m., so that all residents could help gather in the rest of the peach crop.
In another instance he cited, the defense council of Garden City, Kans., “in a house-to-house registration signed up every gble-bodied man and woman— more than 1,000—who went out in Finney County and helped harvest the overripe wheat crop.”
Commending labor union participation, the OCD Director declared, “Civilian defense has found in organized labor some of its best volunteer workers. If properly appealed to, they will work on near-by farms on weekends or in the late afternoon and early evening.”
"WATCH THOSE CHICKENS, PAL”
—Two-column mats are available.
RAILROADS EMPLOY 60%
MORE WOMEN
Employment of women on Class 1 railroads increased almost 60 percent in the four-month period from mid-September to mid-January, Otto S. Beyer, director of the division of transport personnel, Office of Defense Transportation, announced last week.
Mr. Beyer’s statement was based on a survey conducted by the Interstate Commerce Commission on railroad employment in January. Last September, the American Association of Railroads reported that 39,590 women were em
ployed in 49 types of jobs on the Nation’s railroads. By January, the number had risen to 63,187 and the types of jobs to 74, the ICC survey shows.
For the first time in railroad history, women employees have been reported in train service. The January survey shows that four women are listed as road passenger brakemen and flagmen, all of them serving on suburban runs. The ICC report also shows that small groups of women are working on some railroads as extra gang laborers, section hands, bridge and building painters, pumping equipment operators, and as bridge and building carpenters.
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April 14, 1943
¿Appointments^
New Draft Order Changes System Of Dependency Deferments
Collateral Dependents, Wives No Longer Sufficient Cause in Themselves for Delaying Calls
Elimination of dependency as a cause for deferment for men with collateral dependents and wives only, except in the case of men necessary to and regularly engaged in agriculture or in cases where extreme hardship and privation would result, was announced this week by War Manpower Chairman McNutt.
Major points in the new program, as outlined in memoranda to State directors by Maj. Gen. Lewis B. Hershey, Director of Selective Service, Included:
No Class I1I-B
(1) Elimination of Class HI-B, the class heretofore used for classification of men with bona fide dependents who were also engaged in activities essential to the support of the war effort. No registrant will be placed in this class hereafter.
(2) Revision of Class III-A, heretofore for men who had dependents but who were not engaged in an activity essential to the support of the war effort. Henceforth this class will be used for any registrant who maintains a bona fide family relationship with his child or children provided his status with regard to them was acquired prior to December. 8, 1941, with two exceptions. Registrants necessary to and regularly engaged in agriculture who have bona fide dependents will continue to be placed in Class IH-C. Registrants who are in nondeferrable activities or occupations designated as such by the War Manpower Commission will be reclassified without reference to the fact that they have children.
(3) Creation of Class IH-D, a new class in which shall be placed any registrant not otherwise deferred if it is determined that his induction into the land or naval forces would result in extreme hardship and privation to a wife, child, or parent with whom he maintains a bona fide family relationship in his home and if, by reason of such determination, it is considered advisable that he be deferred.
(4)- Elimination of the “imminence of selection” rule. However, as has been
the rule, dependents acquired on or after December 8,1941, will not be considered as a basis for deferment and any child born on or after September 15, 1942, will be considered as having been conceived on or after December 8, 1941, and thus will not be considered as cause for deferment unless there is affirmative evidence of a medical character which clearly establishes that birth was delayed.
(5) Stabilization in Class III-A, for any registrant with a child or children with whom he maintains a bona fide family relationship in their home, so that such registrants, placed in this class, shall not be considered for reclassification into a class available for military service or, if a conscientious objector, for work of national importance until such reclassification is ordered by the Director of Selective Service or a change in the registrant’s status occurs.
Order of Calls
(6) Reiteration of previous orders on filling calls so that men who are finally classified in Class I-A, available for military service; Class I-A-O, available for noncombatant military service; or Class IV-E, conscientious objectors available for work of national importance, should be called for induction into military service or asigned to work of national importance insofar as possible, in the following order: Single men with no dependents, single men with collateral dependents, married men with wives only, and finally, men with children.
The new orders are contained in amendments to Selective Service Regulations and in a Local Board Memorandum (No. 123) which is being distributed to local boards.
War Damage
Rates Stand
Secretary of Commerce Jones last week announced that at a meeting of the Board of Directors of the War Damage Corporation it was determined that there would be no change in its presently established premium rates.
Fitzgerald Joins OWI Domestic Branch
STEPHEN FITZGERALD has resigned as WPB’s chief information officer to become deputy director of OWI’s Domestic Branch. He will serve as liaison officer between OWI and a group of Government agencies, including WPB and WMC. • He will be replaced in the WPB post by BRUCE CATTON, who has been serving as Mr. Fitzgerald’s assistant.
DAN W. TURNER, former Governor of Iowa, has resigned as chief of the WPB Prison Industries Branch.
Dr. EDWARD C. ELLIOTT has resigned as chief of the WMC Professional and Technical Service, Bureau of Training, because of increased pressure of duties as President of Purdue University. He will continue temporarily as chairman of the Joint Committee for the Selection of Non-Federal Educational Institutions.
HARRY N. SCHOOLER has resigned as director of the North Central Division of AAA. He had succeeded Secretary Wickard in that post in February 1940.
THOMAS E. MANWARRING, of San Francisco, has succeeded ROBERT DILLMAN as technical consultant of the . WPB Containers Division. Mr. Dillman will return to private industry.
W. N. WESTERLUND, president of the Maritime Transport Line and Marine Operating Company, has been named assistant deputy administrator in charge of ship operations of the War Shipping Administration.* He succeeds JOHN E. CUSHING, who is going to San Francisco as assistant deputy administrator of WSA services in the Pacific area^
FRANK HAAS, of St. Paul, Minn., will act as field officer for the WPB Labor ₓ Production Division. He will coordinate the activities of regional labor representatives.
THREE COLLEGES
ADDED TO PROGRAM
Three educational institutions have been added to the list of colleges and universities declared eligible for the placement of war training programs by the Army and Navy, the Joint Committee for the Selection of Non-Federal Educational Institutions announced this week.
April 14, 1943
★ VICTORY BULLETIN ★
415
Red Cross Sets Up Volunteer Corps
Dietitians’ Aide Group To Alleviate Shortage
Creation of a new Red Cross volunteer corps through which American women can serve the war effort by helping alleviate the Nation’s acute shortage of hospital dietitians was announced this week by Mrs. Dwight Davis, national director, American Red Cross Volunteer Special Services.
The new group, officially designated as the Red Cross Volunteer Dietitians’ Aide Corps, is being established in response to demands from hospitals throughout the country and will be organized in cooperation with the American Dietetic Association and the Red Cross Nutrition Service.
The Volunteer Dietitians’ Aide Corps is the third Red Cross volunteer group to enter hospital service. It was preceded by the Volunteer Nurse’s Aide Corps and the Hospital and Recreation Corps, more familiarly known as the “Gray Ladies.’’
Only Where Needed
The corps will be organized for the duration of the war and only in communities where hospitals request such service, Mrs. Davis said. She explained that the demand arose because of the shortage of hospital dietitians, many of whom have entered the services of the Army and Navy and war industries.
To be eligible as dietitians’ aides, volunteers will be required to take a 60-hour training course, broken down into 20 hours of standard nutrition studies and 40 hours of special training, including 15 hours of supervised, practical hospital work. Throughout the training period, they will work under the supervision of graduate dietitians.
Requirements Listed
Other requirements are that applicants agree to serve a minimum of 150 hours without remuneration, preferably within a three-month period, and that they are over 18 years of age and have a high school education, or its equivalent.
Duties- of dietitians’ aides, which are extensive, include the preparation and checking of diets and menus, serving food to patients and hospital personnel, and clerical work.
Th^G^^ess^Lcist
Congress Considers Action On Manpower, Wage Issues
Senate Passes Legislation to Recruit, Transport, House Farm Workers
Both houses of Congress were occupied with labor and manpower problems last week. The House passed and sent to the Senate the Hobbs amendment to the anti-racketeering act, permitting prosecutions for “interference with interstate commerce by robbery and extortion” and carrying broad definitions of the terms. The bill would also prevent interference with wartime transportation of troops, wai* materials, or mail. An amendment to the bill provides that nothing in it is to be construed as repealing or modifying the Clayton Act, Norris-LaGuardia Act, Railway Labor Act, or National Labor Relations Act.
Senate Asks WLB Report
In the Senate, a resolution was unanimously approved calling on the War Labor Board to submit by May 10 a complete report on wage increases authorized since January 12, 1942. Also approved was a resolution authorizing investigation, by a subcommittee of the Military Affairs Committee, of labor and transportation difficulties on the West Coast.
To alleviate the farm labor shortage, the Senate passed and sent to conference a bill providing $40,000,000 to recruit, transport, and house farm labor. Food Administrator Davis was given full authority for the program which would, in effect, create a mobile land army of domestic and Mexican farm workers.
The House adopted a resolution providing for congressional investigation of OPA’s standardization program, including grade labeling. The resolution also authorizes the House Interstate and Foreign Commerce Committee to study the “true facts” of the newsprint situation in Canada and the United States.
A bill changing loss of citizenship provisions regarding Army deserters was passed by the House. Under present law, a soldier convicted for desertion automatically loses his citizenship, whether or not he subsequently returns to the ranks. The House action removes the automatic penalty save in extreme cases.
Lunds for U. S. Agencies
The House approved appropriations of $189,629,000 to the State, Justice and Commerce Departments for fiscal 1944. The amount represented decreases from the 1943 budgets of State and Commerce, but the appropriation for the FBI in the Justice Department was greatly increased in line with the pressure of antisabotage activity. Also passed was an appropriation of $40,659,000 for fiscal 1944 expenses of the legislative and judiciary branches.
Both Houses passed legislation to provide overtime pay for Civil Service employees. The Senate’s bill extends overtime privileges to employees making $5,000 or more, while the House version would prohibit these persons from receiving payments. The legislation was sent to conference.
Other Actions
To help “hold the line” against inflation, the House Banking and Currency Committee approved legislation suspending for the duration of the war assessments paid by banks on certain Government securities. An amendment to the Federal Reserve Act, the bill was requested by the-Treasury to encourage the buying of war bonds. The House Naval Affairs Committee approved unanimously a bill designed to curb excessive profits by commission agents engaged in procuring war contracts.
Action on foreign affairs included: approval by the House of a resolution calling for continuation indefinitely of U. S. representation on the Inter-American Financial arid Economic Advisory Committee, and the Emergency Advisory Committee for Political Defense; a bill passed by the Senate authorizing deportation of aliens of Axis-occupied countries to nations where their governments are in exile; and a House Bill permitting the Secretary of War to convey to Puerto Rico certain real estate now under U. S. jurisdiction (already passed by the Senate).
416
★ VICTORY BULLETIN ★
4pril 14, 1943
PRODUCTION DATA
INDEX NUMBERS OF PROGRAM PROGRESS¹
--- Munitions War Tofal war
production * construction s output *
November 1941__________________________ ---------------- 100 100 700
Average first quarter, 1942________________ ________________ 178 119 150
April___________________________________ ________________ 233 168 202
May_____________________________________ _______________ 265 193 229
June___________________________________ _______________ 293 225 251
July------------------------------------ _______________ 321 265 280
August_________________________________ _______________ 350 280 800
September_____________________________ _______________ 365 275 310
October_______________'I_________________ 386 254 316
November________________________________ ________________ 436 242 338
December _______________________________ ________________ 496 215- 363
January 1943____________________________ ________________ 457 »206 »344
February_______________________________ ________________ 1483 * 205 p 358
• ¹ The 1942 index numbers have been revised for each of the three series.
² Munitions production represented by the index includes planes, ships, tanks, guns, ammunition, and all campaign equipment produced during the month. Fixed dollar values are assigned to items to adjust for the differences in sizes and costs.
³ Includes all Government-financed war construction.
⁴ Total war output represented by the index includes war construction and all current war production of goods and services for expenditure from Government funds.
p Preliminary. r Revised.
EXPANSION OF WAR INDUSTRIAL FACILITIES
Publications may have mats or proofs of “War Facts’* statistical charts.
Cumulations are from June 1940
Commitments Completions Value
as of as of completed during
Feb. 28,1943 . Feb. 28,1943 Feb. 1943 Jan. 1943
(Millions of dollars)
Total Government-financed_________ * $14, 225 $10, 060 $562 '$576
Construction___________________ 6, 833 5,576 252 '253
Machinery and equipment™___ 7, 392 _4, 484 310 '323
(Billions of dollars)
War program_____p $239.0 p $238.4
Commitments_____ C) p 190.1
Expenditures_____ 80.5 74.5
PROGRAM—COMMITMENTS— EXPENDITURES
Cumulative from June 1940
Feb. 28,1945 Jan. SI, 1943
Commitments for privately financed expansions as measured by estimated
cost of.12,927 Certificates of Necessity approved as of Feb. 28, 1943_*__$4,043,000,000
War Expenditures—Monthly and Daily
¹ Total as of Jan. 31, 1943, revised to $14,082,000,000; construction revised to $6,744,000,000, and machinery and equipment revised to $7,338,000,000.
» Revised.
NON-INDUSTRIAL WAR CONSTRUCTION
Cumulations are from June 1940
Total Government-financed_______... Commitments Completions Value
as of as of completed durina
Feb. 28,19!fS Feb. 28,19^3 Feb. 191)3 Jan. 191,3
1 $16,488 (Millions of dollars)
$11,998 $608 '$601
Military_________________________ 14, 580 10, 922 546 »536
■Housing and community facilities. 1,908 1,076 62 65
Privately-financed war housing_______ 1,350 990 35 45
Feb. 1943 Jan. 1943
(Millions of dollars)
Expenditures______$6,081 $6,254
Number of days 24 26
Dally rate_______- 253.4 240.5
MANPOWER
Feb. 191,3 Feb. 1942 (Millions of persons)
Labor force__________ 52.3 53.4
Employed____________ 50.9 49.4
Unemployed____________ 1.4 4.0
¹ Total as of Jan. 81, 1943, revised to $15,922,000,000, and military revised to $14,114,000,000. » Revised.
COST OF LIVING
Cost of Goods Purchased in Large Cities
Percentage of increase ‘ Feb. 1942 to Feb. 1943
MERCHANT VESSELS DELIVERED
¹ In addition, the Maritime Commission delivered during the period 67 special-type vessels.
Combined index________-_______ 7.1
Selected components: Food_________________________ 14.4
Clothing______________________ 5.8
Rent____________________________ —0.6
House furnishings______________ 3. 5
War Facts Are Assembled by Special Offices Branch, Division of Information, WPB
1 Not available. p Preliminary.
For additional information on Program-Com-mitinents-Expenditures, see VICTORY, March 24, J.943, p. 338; for Manpower, see issue of March $1, 1943, p. 36,2 ; for Cost of Living, see issue of April 7, 1943, p. 890.
.w Fei. 19# Cumulative
Mar. && April 19^
Mar, 19431
Number of ships------------------------ __________ 134 107 988
Tonnage (deadweight tons)-------____ ___________ 1,491,000 X, 186,000 10,901,000
April 14, 1943
* VICTORY BULLETIN ★
417
This Year’s Steel Production
Estimated at 92 Million Tons
Prospective Output Set at 6 Million Tons Above Record Production of Last Year
Estimates of the production of steel this year were revised downward last week by the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Department of Commerce, but output was placed at an all-time record of 92 million net tons of ingots and castings, a gain of 6 million tons or 7 percent over the record production of last year.
Earlier estimates of 93 million tons were based on the expansion of total steel capacity of 97.1 million tons by the middle of this yerr. However, because competing demands of other essential war programs for materials and equipment have delayed the completion of scheduled additional steel capacity, the expectation now is that new facilities may be completed by that time to bring total annual capacity up to 95 million tons. The estimate of a total output of 92 million tons this year is based on that expectation.
Quarterly Figures
Production during the first quarter of this year is estimated at 21.9 million tons, or an annual rate of 88.8 million tons. In order to achieve a total production for the year of 92 million tons, therefore, the output in the next nine months must be at an average annual rate of 93.1 million tons. A steel output of 93 million tons would require production at an average annual rate of 94.4 million tons during the coming nine months.
While the quantity of materials required to attain this goal is tremendous, the outlook for raw materials required for steel making in 1943 is relatively favorable.
Great Lakes Ore Movement
Confidence that the iron ore industry, the lake vessel industry and the railroad servicing industry will do all possible to meet the tentatively set quota of 95,000,000 tons for the 1943 Great Lakes iron ore movement was expressed by War Production Board Chairman Nelson.
The 1943 goal is 3,000,000 tons more than the record set in 1942, and
15,000,000 tons more than were moved in 1941. Prior to 1941, the record was 66,000,000 tons, set in 1916.
The size of the task before the industry may be seed from the fact that an average of about 400,000 tons of ore must be loaded and shipped daily from the upper Great Lakes ports in an average season of 240 days to meet the quota. Aiding in the effort to meet the 1943 goal will be the addition of 16 new carriers to last year’s 306-boat fleet. Half of the new ships are scheduled to be in operation by the end of this month, and the 'Others after the season’s mid-way mark is reached.
These new 14,000-ton vessels, which will make about 4 trips a month, probably will offset the fact that the season will open some 3 weeks later than it did last year. On the other hand, increases in the movement of other essential commodities also are called for this season and will require greater tonnages of Lake equipment.
Dependence on Lake Ores
Dependence of the United States steel industry on the Lake Superior ores is indicated by recent production figures of the iron mining industry. Of the output during the years 1941 and 1942, the Lake Superior District—embracing Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin—accounted for 86.5 percent. The balance comes principally from two sbuthern States, with smaller tonnages originating in the East and West.
The Lake ores supply virtually all of the blast furnaces in Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, some in Pennsylvania and New York, and those in the Lake Superior District itself. The ores must be transported distances ranging from 300 to 1,000 miles. Most of it goes first by rail to an upper Lake port, where it is loaded on the boats for the trip southward or eastward to lower Lake ports. It then moves by rail to the steel plants.
Mines in other areas are expected to bring the total of iron ore available this year to 125 million tons. Furthermore, the steel industry began the year with
1942 Woolen, Worsted Output Sets Record
Five Percent Increase
Over Previous Year
Production of woolen pnd worsted woven fabrics last year reached a new all-time high of 525,000,000 linear yards. The output represented a 5 percent gain over the former record of 501,000,000 linear yards produced in 1941, and was almost twice as great as 1939 production.
All military requirements were met on schedule, with yardages required for military purposes representing approximately half of the total industry output.
Production of essential civilian fabrics was maintained at relatively high levels, compared with 1939, with the exception of fabrics made primarily for men’s civilian apparel. A lowered output of these latter types of fabrics reflected primarily the large numbers of men going into the armed services and the resultant reduction in demand.
However, it was pointed out that substantial inventories together with new stocks were sufficient to meet all requirements. Current reports on the supply picture indicate that manufacturers and distributors continue to carry ade-quatç stocks of men’s clothing.
In the case of woolen and worsted fabrics for women’s clothing and general use, the tabulations show that production last year attained 98 percent of the output in 1939.
iron ore stocks on hand one-sixth larger than at the start of 1942.
Record Plate Production
Steel plate production in March reached an all-time high. Total shipments by all types of mills last month were 1,167,679 net tons, compared with the previous record of 1,135,41$ net tons shipped in January. The March figure compares with shipments of 1,072,001 net tons in February, and 878,726 net tons in March 1942.
Shipments to Maritime Commission yards totaled approximately a half million tons. Other war agencies shared heavily in March shipments of plate, which, in taking a fifth of ingot output, is now the steel industry’s largest tonnage product. More than 400,000 tons were produced for the Army and Navy to meet requirements for tanks, other mobile equipment and ordnance, aircraft carriers, destroyers, escort and other war vessels.
00
*
Q p ?
W ö F
. w . a ;
'S
NEW WPB REGULATIONS
[Issued to April 8. Compiled especially for Victory Bulletin by Field Contact Branch of the War Production Board] [Inquiries concerning these listings should be addressed to E. Hamilton Campbell, Chief, Field Service Section, 3204 Building E, Washington, D. C. Telephone: REpublic 7500, Extension 3946]
Issued--- Federa Administrator
Order Ño. Modification Title Abstract of priorities action PD forms Effective Expires Register Division Tel. ext.
citation
L-103 Amended Glass container, and clo- Permits issuance of simplification schedules; freezes designs; permits finishes 4-5-43 8 F. R. 4298. Containers. .... 0. P. Kolstedt,
sure simplification. ' interchange with provisions. 4981.
L-103 Schedule A Distilled spirits___ Redefines “standard glass container”_____....___-_______i______ _____-______... 4-5-43 8 F. Ri 4304. Containers______..
Amended.
L-103 . Schedule B Malt beverages Redefines “standard glass container”; restricts use of Exhibits 12 and 13 to 4-5-43 8 F. R. 4306. Containers____ ---__
Amended. pack to be shipped outside U. 8.
L-103.______ Schedule C Glass containers for cer- Prohibits use for packing for sale of specified products except in standard con- 4-5-43 8 F. R. 4308. Containers.---
Amended. tain food products. tainers, subject to certain exceptions.
L-103....... Schedule D Glass containers for wines. Redefines “standard glass container”__--______________-------------- 4-5-43 8 F. R. 4309. Containers....
L-103 Amended. 4-5-43 8 F. R. 4311. Containers__
Schedule E Glass containers for pro- Amends definitions of standard container; permits use of non-standard with
f Amended. tective coatings. certain provisions.
L-170....... Amended Farm machinery and Increases certain export quotas; adds French Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia_______ 4-6-43 8 F. R. 4406. Farm Machinery G. Krieger, 72843.
equipment, etc. Equipment.
L-176_______ Amended .- Domestic and commercial Restricts manufacture, assembly and transfer to specified types of orders or as 500, 556, 4-6-43 8 F. R. 4419. Consumer’s Durable H. L. Stiles, 3953.
electric fans. authorized; restricts manufacture of repair or replacement parts. 655. Goods.
L-193....... Amended... Conveying machinery, . Amends Schedule A..._________________________________....___________________ 4-5-43 8 F. R. 4313. General Industrial O. R. Heller,
mechanical power trans- 72336.
mission equipment; Equipment. H. J. Adams, 3882.
L-217...... Schedule IX Tank car heaters and 697 8iF. R. 4316. Construction Ma-
pumping boosters or cir- chinery.
L-217 . . Schedule X culators. 697 4-5-43, 8 F. R. 4316. Construction Ma-
Bituminous paving finish- Limits production to specified sizes and types; permits repair parts production.. 4-30-43
' ers. Restricts production to one model of 10-foot size; permits repair parts produe- 4-5-43, chinery.
L-217. _ Bituminous distributors ■ tion. . < 697 4-30-43 8 F. R. 4317. Construction Ma-
Schedule XI and bituminous dis- Limits production to specified sizes and types; permits repair parts production. 4-5-43, chinery.
L-217_______ Schedule tributors pumps. Limits production to specified sizes; permits repair parts production______..... 697 4-30-43 8 F. R. 4317. Construction Ma-
Bituminous heating ket- 4-5-43,
XII. tles. 4-30-43 chinery.
L-217 Sche’dule Bituminous materials 697 4-5-43, 8 F. R. 4317. Construction Ma-
xm. 4-33-434 chin ery.
L-217 Schedule Limits production to specified sizes and types; permits repair parts production.. 697 4-5-43, 8 F. R. 4318. Construction Ma-
XIV. maintenance units. Limits production to specified sizes and types; permits repair parts production- 4-30-43 chinery
L-217... S ch e düle Bituminous patch plants.. Limits production to model 4' x 6'; permits repair parts production....__._____ 697 4-5-43, 8 F. R. 4318. Construction Ma-
XV. Asphalt surface heaters.... 4-30-43 chinery.
L-253 Amended... Motor truck and trailer Amends Schedule A_______________________________________________........ 4-5-43 8 F. R. 4319. Automotive___ J. E. Graham,
bodies. Prohibits production or assembly of Schedule A products after 4---30---43; re- 500 2706. ’
L-270-...--- Automotive maintenance stricts production or assembly of Schedule B ana C and maintenance and 4-5-43 8F. R. 4320. Automotive.. ..... J. J. Donovan,
repair products to percentage of 1941; restricts producer’s sales to orders
equipment. rated AA-5 or higher, subject to exceptions. 2755. .
L-282 _____ Fish netting_______________ Restricts production and sales to military orders and for fish netting; assigns 4-3-43 8 F. R. 4296. Textile. Clothing Henry Martin,
A-2 rating to deliveries of yam; effective 4-5-43. and Leather. 71655.
Amended Copper Amends List A---2, Military Exemption List and Combined List__________ 4-6-43 8 F. R. 4400. Conner________ E. W. Roath,
74520;
M-45 Amended Sheet steel- - Eliminates reference to P-76, which is revoked..___ 4-8-43 8 F. R. 4646. Containers_____....2 M. R. Sprague,
73800. , ’
M-106 . Amended a Shellac___________________ Revises definitions; amends existing stocks exemptions..__...___________-_____ 617 4-8-43 8 F. R. 4646. Chemicals___________ K. A. Dillard,
Iron and steel conserva- 3670.
M-126 Amended... tion. Revises order to eliminate conflict with other orders since issued - - 500 4-8-43 8 F. R. 4648. Steel________________ G. Leslie, 2690.
M-170-a. _ Polystyrene________....__ Establishes allocation control, subject to small order exemption; effective 4-5-43 8 F. R. 4312. Chemicals___________ L. P. Hohlfelder,
5-1-43. 600,601 71709.
M-227 Amended Copper chemicals__ Prohibits use for plating where M-9-c prohibits use of copper....___...___... 4-6-43 8 F. R. 4420. Chemicals_________--- M. Go 1 dberg,
72813. , S’
M-241-a Amends use restrictions and revises List A - 4-7-43 Puto and Panef... _ C. E. Snow, 4991
Amended... 8 F. R. 4324.
Paper and paperboard i...
M-304 Adipic acid and deriva- Restricts use and delivery; establishes allocation control 600 4-5-43 Chemicals.--- G. W. Smith,
P-58 . Amended tives. 803 4-5-43 75846. ' - /
South American copper Establishes procedure to obtain maintenance,repair, operating supplies; CMP A. S. Knoizen,
Supersedes ' producers. Reg. No. 5 not applicable. Mining Equipment. 2458.
P-142______ P-88, L- Transportation system; Establishes procedure for assignment of preference ratings to orders for con- 844 4-5-43 8 F. R. 4322. Transportation G. M. Cornell,
239. maintenance, repair, op- trolled and other materials; restricts use, and conservation of materials; per-
Amended... erating supplies. mits resale of materials with provisions.. 8 F. R. 4422. Equipment. 2869.
TJ-5________ Communications______.___ Changes assigned preference rating from AA---4 to AA---5.________________________ 4-6-43 Communications---- L. H. Peebles,
5638.
April 14, 1943
★ VICTORY BULLETIN ★
419
WarfT/ansporiàtion^
Antitrust Immunity For Joint Operation
Plans To Be Reviewed
More Quickly
Common carriers by motor truck are granted immunity from prosecution under the antitrust laws when operating on a joint basis in accordance with special ODT conservation orders, the Office of Defense Transportation said last week.
A new procedure, worked out cooperatively by the War Production Board, the Department of Justice and the ODT, is expected, moreover, to reduce materially the time required to review the joint action plans upon which such orders are based.
Under a certificate issued by thé WPB Chairman at the request of the ODT, the ODT is authorized to determine whether a joint action plan conforms to a specific program for conservation of common carrier equipment and, if so, to order the plan put into effect.
The WPB certificate was issued under authority of a provision of the Small Business Concerns Act, and in effect grants immunity from prosecution under the antitrust laws to carriers operating under special ODT orders as long as they comply fully with the provisions of the orders.
In another legal matter, ODT said that certificates of war necessity and T ration gasoline coupons may not be transferred along with titles to trucks or other commercial vehicles. The action directly violates General Order ODT 21, the ODT pointed out, and may be punished by suspension or revocation of certificates.
New operators receiving a motor vehicle through transfer must file an application for CWN immediately upon the transfer. Operators who already hold certificates must apply for revised certificates, using Form CWN-5-S if a single unit operator or Form 5-F if a fleet operator. Failure to file such applications may also result in suspension of the operator’s CWN, the ODT said.
Single unit operators (operators of one or two vehicles) must return certificates to their ODT District Offices and must surrender unused “T” coupons to their Ibcal War Price and Rationing Boards upon transfer. Fleet operators must advise the nearest ODT District Office of their action and return the appropriate subcertificate.
SUBCOMMITTEES AID MAINTENANCE GROUPS
In furtherance of its Nation-wide vehicle maintenance program, the Office of Defense Transportation has provided for the establishment of subcommittees to assist and advise the District Maintenance Advisory Committees.
At the same time, the ODT announced that 41 more District Advisory Committees have been approved, bringing the total, thus far, to 89.
A subcommittee is to be formed for each of the 11 automotive groups represented on the District Maintenance Advisory Committee. The representative from that branch of the automotive industry on the District Committee will serve as chairman of the subcommittee as well as select its members, whose number shall be determined by the District Committee.
These 11 subcommittees represent for-hire and private carriers, heavy duty trucks, light truck and automobile dealers, garages, parts jobbers, bus lines, tire distributors, oil companies, and trailer distributors.
Subcommittees representing nine additional automotive and related activities also are to be established including truck rental, taxicabs, body manufacturers, used parts and salvage, safety, driver training, mechanic and shop personnel training, U. S. Truck Conservation Corps, and machine shops engaged in rebuilding parts and performing repair services.
MANY WOMEN WORK IN TRANSPORTATION
American transportation services are employing large numbers of women in a constantly growing variety of occupations, Miss Dorothy Sells of the Office of Defense Transportation, said last week.
“The latest available figures indicate that at least 160,000 women are engaged in the various transportation branches, and the variety of jobs for which women are wanted increases daily,” Miss Sells declared.
“There are openings for women in every branch of transportation, air, rail, motor, and in some cases, even in pipeline transportation. Owing to the demand for womanpower in wartime, the standard training period for many occupations has been reduced. It now varies according to the job, to the previous education and experience of the applicant and her individual capability.
Inland Waterways Use Increases
More Coal, Steel Moved On Nation’s Rivers
A marked increase in the use of the Nation’s inland waterways was noted last week by Joseph B. Eastman, director of the Office of Defense Transportation.
“Domestic carriers by water,” said Mr. Eastman, “are moving a very large volume of freight and are making an important contribution to the national war effort.”
The increases in traffic on the Mississippi and Ohio rivers have been largely in northbound traffic and in the movement of materials requiring gondola, or open-top, barges. A heavier volume of such commodities as coal and steel— particularly structural steel—combined with the withdrawal of 116 barges for conversion to petroleum carriage, has brought into use virtually all the available open-top barges.
The movement on the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers remains unbalanced, largely for the same reason parallel rail movement is unbalanced—the lack of balance in the traffic itself, which moves in greater volume north and east.
Movements Begun
Movements on the upper Mississippi to the Twin Cities, Minn., region already have begun, but only preliminary operations have started on the upper Great Lakes, three weeks later than the 1942 opening? Movements on the lower Lakes already have started. Operations on the New York Barge Canal probably will not be under way for a few days.
Coal, well suited to water transport, is moving in great volume on virtually all the inland waterways—down the Monongahela, Allegheny and Kanawha Rivers to the steel mills at Pittsburgh; on the Ohio from Huntington, W. Va., to Cincinnati and St. Louis, and from Kentucky mines downstream to Memphis. More than 600,000 tons a year moves up the Mississippi from the coal mines of lower Illinois to the Twin Cities, and a considerable volume is hauled from La Salle to Chicago on the Illinois River.
Mobile, Ala., is supplied with coal barged down the Warrior River from the Alabama fields, while New England receives a heavy volume of coal moved by waterway and ocean barges from New York harbor piers and direct from Norfolk, Va.
420
★ VICTORY BULLETIN ★
April 14, 1943
OCD Requests Aid To Prevent Fires
Eastern Coast Residents
Asked to Assist
Civilian Defense Director Landis last week appealed to residents of the Eastern Seaboard States to assist the Civilian Defense Forest Fire Fighters Service and State and local authorities in preventing additional serious fires such as those which had swept large areas in New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and other Eastern States within the week.
The most urgent need, Mr. Landis said, is for additional recruits to volunteer for service with the Civilian Defense Forest Fire Fighters Service. Volunteers will be trained under the direction of State foresters, who are also State Coordinators of the FFFS, and assigned to duty in their own communities.
Recruits Needed
Although there are now an estimated 47,500 members of thé Civilian Defense FFFS in the Eastern States, Mr. Landis said, the number is still inadequate and State Coordinators need all the recruits they can get.
Older high school boys in rural areas and small cities are particularly welcomed by the FFFS, Mr. Landis said. In Maryland, where 2,000 high school boys are full members of FFFS and 1,000 others are in training, credit for conquering several of the stubborn blazes of the past few days went to the young crews.
The job of protecting the Nation’s forest resources from fire—made the responsibility of OCD by Executive order of the President—is more important, and at the same time more difficult this year, Mr. Landis said.
In previous recent years, he pointed out, there have been labor reserves in the rural areas who are always available to fight fires, while CCC camps throughout the country not only worked constantly to remove fire hazards in forest land but provided trained companies for fire fighters who could be called upon in an emergency.
No Labor Reserves
This year there are no reserves of labor In rural areas and CCC camps are no longer in existence. This means that the only fire fighters normally available are farmers who must stop the work of plowing and planting, soldiers from mili-
U. S. PLANTS INCREASE POWER FOR THE WEST
Bureau of Reclamation power plants provided 70 percent of the generating capacity added last year to speed war production in the 11 far western States. The greater part of the power capacity was installed at Grand Coulee Dam in Washington and at Boulder and Parker dams in the Pacific Southwest.
The Bureau installed 393,500 of the 557,000 kilowatts added in the west last year. This year the agency will contribute 500,000 of the 825,000 new kilowatts scheduled for installation. Bureau power is generated as a byproduct of multiple-purpose projects, having as their primary function the conversion through irrigation of arid lands into productive farms.
NEW PUBLICATIONS
OCD announces a new pamphlet, the “War Emergency Radio Service Fact Sheet,” which explains the new emergency two-way radio communication system. OCD Director Landis has advised every community to take steps immediately to avail itself of this important protection, the War Emergency Radio Service, so that in case of enemy attack or local catastrophe its defense forces and its communications may be both effective and flexible. Copies of the Fact Sheet are available from the Editorial Section, Office of Civilian Defense, Washington, D. C.
The National Committee on the Housing Emergency, Inc., 512 Fifth Avenue, New York City, has a new publication, “Tomorrow’s Town.” The new monthly will serve, issue by issue, as a medium for discussion of the many varied aspects of the problem of housing and construction.
tary training areas, or workers from the many war plants which have been located in the country.
The season of high danger from forest fires will exist in most of the Eastern States for at least another three or four weeks, Mr. Landis said. In order that soldiers will not have to be taken from training, war workers from their jobs, or farmers from behind the plow, he urged everyone in the rural areas of those States who can do so to volunteer for the Forest Fire Fighter Service.
At the same time he urged other Civilian Defense organizations to assist the FFFS in recruiting volunteers and fighting fires. Civilian Defense Volunteer Offices, he said, should take the lead in the recruiting program.
Cíví/’&tvic^
Apply to the U. S. Civil Service Commission, Washington, D. C., for positions listed below. Persons now using their highest skills in war work should not apply. Appointments in Federal positions are made in accordance with War Manpower Commission policy and directives and employment stabilization plans.
Obtain information and application forms at first- or second-class post offices, or from the Commission’s Regional or Washington offices.
Urgently Needed
Stenographers, $1,752 and $1,970.
Typists, $1,532 and $1,752.—In Washington, D. C., especially, opportunities exist for those with and without previous experience who pass the required test.
Engineering Draftsmen, $1,752 to $3,163.—Qualified engineering draftsmen in any field are urged to apply. Persons having some drafting experience or training in commercial art will be considered.
Graduate Nurses, $2,190.—Registered nurses who are graduates of accredited schools of nursing are needed for general staff duty in Federal hospitals treating veterans, injured seamen, servicemen, and others returned from the war theatres.
Blueprint, Photostat, Multilith Press Operators, $1,752.—War agencies in Washington, D. C., need men or women who have had at least 3 months appropriate experience or 80 hours suitable training on any one of these machines.
Multilith Cameramen - Platemakers, $1,970.—Applicants are sought who have had at least 1 year of multilith experience, 6 months of which were in the photographic and platemaking phases.
Radio Mechanic-Technicians, $1,752 to $3,163.—Research connected with the war program has created an urgent need for persons competent to construct, assemble, maintain, overhaul, repair, or operate a variety of modern radio equipment.
Teletype Operators, $1,752 to $1,970.— Operators are required who have had at least 2 weeks training or experience and who type accurately by touch at least 35 words a minute on a multiplex, simplex, or teletype machine.
Office Appliance Repairman, $2,262.— Typewriter repairmen are especially needed. One year or more of appropriate experience is required.
April 14, 1943
* VICTORY BULLETIN ★
421
This is a complete list of press releases issued by the Office of War Information from Sunday, April 4, through Saturday, April 10. Copies of these releases may be obtained at the U. S. Information Center, 1400 Pennsylvania Avenue NW.
Department of the Interior
PARK-WALTON MINE REOPENING. Department of the Interior. Bureau of Mines clears way for exploration and development. OWI—1587.
SALMON PACKERS CONCENTRATED. Department of the Interior. Industry may increase pack over last year. OWI-1568.
PUERTO RICO ADVISORS NAMED. Department of the Interior. Five merchants to become members of Trade Advisory Committee for Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands. OWI-1576.
ALASKA HIGHWAY STUDIED. Department of the Interior. National Park Service to assist War Department. OWI-1584.
RECLAMATION ADDS 70 PERCENT OF NEW POWER. Department of the Interior. Bureau of Reclamation plants speed war production. OWI-1590.
MONAZITE SAND DISCUSSED. Department of the Interior. Bureau of Mines report. OWI-1597.
GOOD WATER YEAR INDICATED. Department of the Interior. Good year for irrigation projects in West. OWI-1602.
National Housing Agency
NHA CONVERSIONS HOUSE 4,000. National Housing Agency. 5,000 family units expected to be leased in April. OWI-1578.
Solid Fuels Coordinator
COAL SHIPMENT EAST HEAVY. Office of Solid Fuels Coordinator for War. Shipments In week ended March 27 comprised fourth largest movement. OWI-1580.
Petroleum Administration
PIPE-LINE PROJECT UNDER STUDY. Petroleum Administration. Line to provide middle western refineries with West Texas crude oil. OWI-1601.
EAST COAST PETROLEUM SUPPLY. Petroleum Administration. 912,919 barrels moved during week ended April 3. OWI-1603.
Coordinator of Fisheries
NAVY RETURNS FIVE SARDINE VESSELS. Coordinator of Fisheries. Return to California sardine fleet arranged through War Shipping Administration. OWI-1615.
SHRIMP INDUSTRY MEETINGS SET. Coordinator of Fisheries. Problems of Gulf Coast shrimp industry to be studied. OWI-1616.
War Shipping Administration
CERTAIN SHIP CEILINGS DELAYED. War Shipping Administration has suspended conditionally maximum freight ceilings to vessels of less than 1,000 gross tons. OWI-1581.
WESTERLUND HEADS SHIPPING. War Shipping Administration. W. N. Westerlund is president of Maritime Transport Line and Marine Operating Co. OWI-1583.
SHIP MANNING PROGRAM PLANNED. War Shipping Administration. Labor, management, and officials of WSA Recruitment and Manning Organization outline program. OWI-1604.
Maritime Commission
MANPOWER PROBLEM IN SHIPBUILDING. Maritime Commission. “Deficit” of 70,000 workers during first quarter of 1943. OWI-1592.
4 PAN-AMERICAN DAY LAUNCHINGS. Maritime Commission. Ships to be christened by women representing Pan-American diplomatic corps. OWI-1608.
Lend-Lease Administration
PACIFIC ALLIES HELP FEED U. S. FORCES. Lend-Lease Administration. Forces in Southwest Pacific receive vegetables, meat, from Australia and New Zealand. OWI-1593.
Department of Labor
YOUTH ON FARMS. Department of Labor. “Guides to Successful Employment of NonFarm Youth in Wartime Agriculture” issued. OWI-1531.
Federal Works Agency
PUERTO RICO POWER UNIT RELEASED. Federal Works Agency. Economies release power unit for war service elsewhere. OWI-1579.
EAST’S FEBRUARY TRAFFIC HALVED. Federal Works Agency. Travel off 52 percent compared with traffic in February 1941. OWI-1588.
Office of Civilian Defense
U. S. PROTECTED BY tremendous network of volunteer workers, armed forces experts, and telephone and radio connections. OCD-5.
PROTECTIVE PROGRAM ANNOUNCED for War production plants against fire, accident, sabotage and air raid. OCD-6.
OCD ALERT to meet threat of rising Missouri River to Iowa and Nebraska communities. OCD-8.
DEFENSE AGAINST FIRES URGED for res- . idents of Eastern Seaboard. OCD-7.
OCD FORCES PREPARE FOR FLOOD along the Missouri River. OCD-10.
Office of Defense Transportation
GJIECKS DELIVERED TO T., P. & W. HEAD total $162,005.63. ODT-187.
WOMEN IN RAILROADING. Employment on class 1 roads increased almost 60 percent from mid-September to mid-January. ODT-188.
“T” COUPONS NOT TRANSFERABLE with titles to trucks, other commercial vehicles. ODT-190.
STATE LABOR LAWS ADMIT WOMEN in transportation industrials. ODT-184.
TRUCK REPORTS DUE MAY 1 from operators of three or more commercial vehicles. ODT-186.
CAR SERVICE MANUAL ISSUED to get top service at bottom cost. ODT-159.
ODT EXPANDS COMMITTEES. 41 more District Committees approved. ODT-189.
TEACHERS’ CONVENTION IN ILLINOIS CANCELLED to avoid interference with essential travel. ODT-192.
AMUSEMENT TRANSPORTATION LIMITED. ODT-191.
INTERCITY BUSES RECRUITING WOMEN to check critical manpower shortages. ODT-193.
TANK BARGES MOVING OIL to reach Minneapolis, Minn. ODT-195.
' WOMEN KEEPING WHEELS ROLLING on transportation services. ODT-196.
MORE CARS READY FOR conversion to petroleum carriers. ODT-197. \
TRUCK POOLING PROTECTED from prosecution under anti-trust laws. ODT-198.
POOL SAVES 44,595,000 CAR MILES for refrigerator cars. ODT^SO.
War Manpower Commission
DR. ELLIOTT LEAVES WMC because of increased duties as President of Purdue University. PM-4355.
EXPEDITE “BACK TO FARM” MOVEMENT, Selective Service advises local boards. PM-4554.
WOMEN’S WAR WORK DISCUSSED at Academy of Political Science, Columbia University. PM-4356.
Office of War Information
FOREST SERVICE AIDS ARMY with technical contributions. OWI-1460.
U. S.-BRITAIN MUNITIONS POOL DESCRIBED in survey of Munitions Assignments Board. OWI-1504.
BUREAU OF MINES CREWS COMMENDED for quest for war minerals in Alaska. OWI—1545.
NAZIS FAIL TO “MOBILIZE” EUROPE despite all-out propaganda campaign. OWI-1554.
COAL PRODUCTION TOPS RECORD for week ending March 27. OWI-1569.
RATION DATES WITH OUR GOVERNMENT. OWI-1572.
FIVE YANKS JOIN INDIAN ARMY to get into immediate action. OWI-1589.
THE WAR AND BUSINESS (No. 66). A summary of the week. OWI-1566.
NORWAY’S BUSINESS NAZIFIED, OWI reports. OWI-1553.
OWI-1586 CORRECTED. (Story on war work of Free Norwegians.) OWI-1605.
CLEARANCE FORMS ISSUED for war contractors by Price Adjustment Boards of War, Navy, and Treasury Departments, and Maritime Commission. OWI-1595.
JEFFERSON CEREMONIES ANNOUNCED for observance of two-hundredth anniversary of birth of Thomas Jefferson. OWI-1596.
WAR LOAN RELEASE CORRECTED. OWI-1594.
ARMY CONSERVING RUBBER. OWI-1501.
OWI SHOWS BLACK MARKET MENACE. Selling in illegal markets involves items ranging from steel to watches. OWI-1539.
“TOWN AND FARM IN WARTIME," Weekly News Digest prepared by Rural Press Section, OWI News Bureau. OWI-1559.
NORWEGIAN WAR EFFORT REVIEWED on third anniversary of Nazi invasion. OWI-1586.
War Production Board
COPPER PLATING RESTRICTED. WPB-3081.
MILITARY TRUCK LIST REVISED as to types exempt from L-253. WPB-3083.
MACHINE TOOL SHIPMENTS OFF 2.6% from January figure. WPB-3085.
PIGMENT TRANSPORTATION STUDIED by industry advisory committees. WPB-3086.
“AUTO” REPAIR ITEMS RESTRICTED. WPB-3087.
COPPER RESTRICTIONS AMENDED as to use in fans and in air-conditioning and refrigeration equipment. WPB-3089.
CIVILIAN SUPPLY SPOTLIGHTED by Donald M. Nelson in statement before Senate Banking and Currency Committee. WPB-3091.
EXPERIMENTAL STEELS EXEMPT from preference ratings or controlled material orders. WPB-3092.
BRAZIL RUBBER HARVEST SPEEDED, reports Douglas H. Allen, president of Rubber Development Corporation. WPB-3093.
CMP EXPORT FACILITATED for resellers of controlled materials. WPB-3094.
EXPORT PROCEDURE CHANGED for four major South American mining producers. WPB—3096.
SHELLAC ORDER CLARIFIED as to definitions and existing stocks. WPB-3097.
$1,886,198 IN CONSTRUCTION HALTED during week ended April 2. WPB-3099.
(Continued On page 422)
422
★ VICTORY BULLETIN ★
April 14, 1943
Official War Releases
(Continued from page 421)
NEWHALL CPRB EXECUTIVE to supervise work of Board’s combined staff. WPB-3059.
GLASS CONTAINERS SIMPLIFIED for commercial packaging of 21 food products. WPB-3C64.
TRANSPORTATION PRIORITIES FIXED. WPB—3065.
POLYSTYRENE UNDER ALLOCATION. Polystyrene is used for high frequency insulation. WPB-3067.
BATT DISCUSSES PEACE PLANNING in broadcast. WPB-3072.
FORTY-THREE REPORTS ELIMINATED from Priorities Regulation 8. WPB-3073.
REPAIR SUPPLIES UNDER CMP, preference Rating Order P-100 revoked. WPB-3074.
BREWERS DISCUSS. TRANSPORTATION at meeting. of Brewers Industry Committee and WPB officials. WPB-3075.
ALCOHOL STORAGE TANKS AVAILABLE for 25 million gallons. WPB-3076.
ROAD-BUILDING MACHINERY SIMPLIFIED, measures effect 85 percent reduction in number of models. WPB-3077.
CONDUIT CONVEYOR STEEL LIMITED. WPB-3078.
OFFICE SUPPLIES PROCEDURE SET as to preference ratings. WPB-3080.
ESSENTIAL CIVILIAN ITEMS STUDIED. WPB-3082.
RUBBER MISSION BACK FROM USSR after studying Russian technique in production. WPB—3084.
CERTAIN STEEL STOCKS FREED fpr civilian products. WPB-3090.
COTTONSEED MEN TO MEET on new season’s cotton linters program. WPB-3110.
FARM MACHINERY EXPORT MODIFIED. WBP-5113.
SOIL PIPE RESTRICTIONS STAY, says Cast Iron Soil Pipe and Fitting Industry Committee. WPB-3117.
STEEL DRUM RATING A-4 REVOKED. WPB-3118.
MARCH SETS STEEL PLATE RECORD With shipments of 1,167,679 net tons. WPB-3119.
KITCHEN FATS COLLECTIONS GAIN 15% over January. WPB-3120.
PRIORITIES ORDERS PROTECTED with aid to dealers, distributors, and jobbers. WPB-3122.
TACKLE BLOCK ORDER REVOKED, now tinder CMP control. WPB-3123.
"COMMAND CONSTRUCTION” DEFINED to include remodeling of buildings ordered by' Chief of Staff, U. S. Army, or Chief of Naval Operations, U. S. Navy. WPB-3124.
CHINAWARE MEETS ARMED FORCES NEEDS. WPB-3111.
ELECTRIC FAN PARTS AVAILABLE. WPB-3112.
ADIPIC ACID UNDER ALLOCATION, used Chiefly in production of Nylon. WPB-3066.
CERTAIN PAPER PRODUCTS EASED to permit manufacture of tablecovers, etc. WPB—3088.
IDLE MATERIALS CONTROL TIGHTENED for persons not regularly engaged in selling such materials. WPB-3095.
BRAND NAMES CONTINUED for radio tubes. WPB-3098.
Q. AND A. ON WATER COOLERS. WPB-3100.
WPB FORMS INDUSTRY ADVISORY BODIES. WPB—3103.
UTILITIES ORDER U-5 CORRECTED. WPB—3105.
FILE RECONDITIONING URGED to conserve 600 tons of high carbon steel. WPB-3106.
LEATHER PROBLEMS DISCUSSED by Industry Advisory Committees. WPB-3107.
GRAND COULEE STOP-ORDER PARTLY LIFTED to permit construction of road. WPB-3108.
ORDER L-l-h CORRECTED. WPB-3109.
CAR PARTS PROCUREMENT EQUALIZED, removed from items under CMP Regulations 5 and 5A. WPB-3125.
SEVEN UTILITIES PROJECTS HALTED. WPB-3127.
MINERS’ PICKS RULE CHANGED to permit change in manufacture. WPB-3116.
HAAS MADE FIELD OFFICER, WPB Labor Production Division. WPB-3121.
FEDERAL AGENCY MATERIAL SALVAGE EFFECTIVE. WPB-3126.
PLATE SALVAGE ASKED jof owners of obsolete printing plates. WPB-3128.
ROAD MACHINERY POOLING URGED for Highway Commissions. WPB-3130.
CONSTRUCTION MACHINERY PROHIBITED as to production and sale of certain types. WPB-3132.
CERTAIN SHOE LEATHERS RELEASED for manufacture. WPB-3133.
RAYON PROBLEMS CONSIDERED by Rayon Producers Advisory Committee. WPB-3134.
OFFICE MACHINERY PLAN OFFERED to control production in accordance with actual needs. WPB-3135.
2,787 VEHICLES RELEASED under truck rationing program. WPB-3136. ¹
WPB STRENGTHENS FIELD, permits field officials to sign orders. WPB-3137.
RECORD ORE MOVEMENT EXPECTED. WPB—3141.
FIVE HIGHWAY PROJECTS HALTED in Montana, Missouri, Texas, and New Jersey. WPB—3142.
HEAVY FLOWMETER ORDERS IN PROSPECT for use in industrial processing to measure flow rate of fluids. WPB-3144. -
CHARCOAL ESSENTIAL PRODUCT. Appeal to woodsmen supplying charcoal industry. WPB-3115.
SOFTWOOD PLYWOOD CONTROL TIGHTENED. WPB-3129.
MARINE PAINTS FACILITATED for .repair demand of ships of Army, Navy, Maritime Commission. WPB-3131.
FARM MACHINERY PROBLEMS STUDIED by -Industry Advisory Committee. WPB-3143.
FOUR ADVISORY COMMITTEES NAMED. WPB—3145.
GILA PROJECT TO BE CONTINUED by Bureau of Reclamation. WPB-3146.
RULES ON SCHEDULED ORDERS to copper wire mills and brass mills. WPB-3147.
FAIRLESS REPORTS on steps taken as result of Truman Committee inquiry. WPB-8148.
EARLY FINE WIRE ORDERS URGED for use in military radio. WPB-3149. ♦
NATION’S IDLE MOTORS SOUGHT for active service. WPB-3151.
FREIGHT CAR MATERIALS AVAILABLE for military and civilian needs. WPB-3152.
WAR SPENDING AT NEW HIGH of $7,112,-000.000 in month of March. WPB-3153.
FRUITS, JUICES ORDER AMENDED. More can be packed in glass for civilians during 1943. WPB-3154.
SOFTWOOD PLYWOOD PRODUCTION INCREASE NEEDED for Army Air Forces/ WPB-3155.
FARM WIRING FACILITATED by simple certification. WPB-3156.
SOLUBLE GUMS LICENSES ASKED for second six months of 1943. WPB-3158. -
GUM COPAL IMPORTS DISCUSSED by Natural Resins Industry Committee. WPB-3160.
FORM REQUIRED FOR FURNITURE PREFERENCE RATING. WPB-3161.
Office of Price Administration
BINDER TWINE PRICES RAISED because of higher costs of substitute materials. OPA-2154.
PACKAGED SKIM MILK PRICED at packer level. OPA-2156.
MACHINERY PRICE ADJUSTMENT METHODS SET. OPA-2166.
COAL RULE TIGHTENED for dealer’s bus!-iness.sold or transferred after April 1., OPA-2170.
FOOD RESEARCHERS will be granted allotments for experimental purposes. OPA-2182.
OPA FORMS SHOE COMMITTEE to aid in problems of prices and quality. OPA-2208.
MEAT INDICTMENTS PLEASE OPA, hailed by Price Administrator Brown as “biggest hammer blow we have dealt yet to the black markets.” OPA-2210.
MILITARY CAPACITORS CONTROLLED under ceiling reflecting current price levels. OPA—2213
INSULATION CAMBRIC PRICED at dollars and cents margins. OPA-T-731.
GASOLINE PRICES CLARIFIED. Maximum prices apply to any liquid fuel to which gasoline taxes apply with exception of aviation gasoline of *87 octane or higher. OPA-T-732.
FUEL OIL USE CUT 60 PERCENT in the 17 Eastern States and District of Columbia from October 1 to March 31. OPA-2190.
USED MACHINERY CEILING based on standard depreciation rates. OPA-2142.
COLOMBIA TO STUDY U. S. PRICE CONTROL. OPA-2162.
GARMENT LABOR COSTS AVERAGED. Manufacturers may estimate "week-work” costs. OPA-T-735.
KNIT UNDERWEAR PRICES EXTENDED for fall and winter wear. OPA-T-733.
GELATINE PRICING MODIFIED for containers of 25 pounds or more. OPA-T-738.
GREASE DELIVERIES GET PRICE AID to assure supply for war industries. OPA-T-739.
CEDAR SHINGLES PRICING MODIFIED to include adjustable provision. OPA-T-742.
PROCESSED FOODS EXPORT ALLOWED, subject to some requirements. OPA-2197.
MEAT PRICES TIED TO PRICE CUTS. Butchers may not reduce point values without lowering prices. OPA-2200.
RENDERING FATS, BONES ARE POINT FREE fdr use as animal foods and other inedible purposes. OPA-2206.
MEAT RATIONING CALENDAR ISSUED. OPA—T—748.
ACCOMMODATION SALES EASED. Maximums need no longer be posted with Price and Ration Boards. OPA-2120.
BEEF, VEAL, LAMB CEILINGS SET at cents-per-pound. OPA-2122.
PRICES FOR MEAT CUTS LISTED. OPA-2123.
INDIA-TANNED GOATSKINS PRICE CUT to bring them into relation with ceilings for finished leather. OPA-2137.
OPA MODIFIES SHOOK PRICING in State of Washington west of crest of Cascade Mountains. OPA-2140.
JEFFERS URGES LIMITED DRIVING. OPA-2173.
HOUSEHOLD HELP CAN “SHARE” RATION POINTS by mutual agreement. OPA-2180.
IMPORTS FOR DIPLOMATIC MISSIONS POINT-FREE. OPA-2186.
FREIGHT ON RAGS CLARIFIED. Wholesale sellers may not add cost of transport. OPA-2187.
MEAT-RATIONING Q. AND A. OPA-2188.
FABRIC PRICES CONTINUED for certain “unlisted” goods. OPA-2167.
AUCTION PRICE EXEMPTIONS LIMITED for establishments regularly engaged in selling by auction. OPA-2179.
WOODEN MATCHES REDUCED IN SIZE. OPA-2184.
CERTAIN COAL FILING EASED as to compensatory adjustments for increased costs of transport. OPA-2192.
EXTRA ALLOY CHARGES SET for steels developed for war since April 16, 1941. OPA-2193.
Q. AND A. OF RATION SHOPPING. OPA-2220.
CAR PRICE CONTROL DEFINED for cars available under rationing. OPA-2225.
LEGAL, ADMINISTRATIVE. DUTIES SET for staffs of OPA. OPA-2231. ’
RATION POINT RULE MODIFIED to permit merchant, while liquidating excess-ppjpt inventory, to retain working capital. OPA-T-758.
X
April 14, 1943
★ VICTORY BULLETIN ★
423
PAPERBOARD DISHES PRICED at dollars and cents maximums. OPA-2146.
CONSULAR CHARGES EXEMPT for foreign governments. OPA-2152.
PULPWOOD BROUGHT UNDER RULE in Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, and New York. OPA—2157.
SCRAP RUBBER RULE MODIFIED for articles bought to be repaired or reconditioned. OPA-2168.
ALLOY SHOT PRICING CHANGED. OPA-2169.
FROZEN SEAFOOD PRICED, fixed percentage mark-ups for wholesale distributors. OPA-2174 .
RELEASE OPA—2122 CORRECTED as to beef, veal, lamb, and mutton prices. OPA-2191.
MILK TRUCK TIRES AVAILABLE when present casings are not recappable. OPA-2201.
"CLEANING EQUIPMENT PRICES RESET. OPA-T-734.
POINT CHARGES CLARIFIED. Point value of foods at time title is transferred governs. OPA-T-751.
POINT ADJUSTMENT ANNOUNCED for inventories of dried fruit. OPA-T-752.
WAREHOUSE MEETING SCHEDULED for members of heavy-line iron and steel warehouse industry. OPA-T-753.
MILK CEILING STAYS. Emergency ceilings' placed Feb. 13 extended indefinitely. OPA-2234.
AIRPLANE CLOTH PRICES RAISED slightly less than 5%. OPA-2235.
FRESH VEGETABLE RULE EASED for sales by farmers to country shippers and to domestic consumers of 7 fresh vegetables. OPA—2236
SEED POTATOES PREMIUM MODIFIED to prevent diversion of selected seed potatoes to food. OPA—2238.
SHOE-PRICING METHODS STUDIED by representatives of 19 leading manufacturers. OPA—2240.
CERTAIN SAUSAGE PRICES RAISED for war procurement agencies. OPA-T—740.
BLAND APPLE SYRUP, new product developed by Department of Agriculture, removed from price control. OPA-T-743.
HARDWOOD BOX LUMBER gets adjustable pricing provision. OPA-T-749.
HOW TO CLOSE POINT BANK ACCOUNTS for small depositors. OPA-T-755.
RAYON GREY GOODS REPORTABLE for military purposes as well as civilian. OPA-2212.
SEED POTATO RULE RELAXED. Retailers may sell in any quantity for planting purposes. OPA-2216.
INVENTORY DEADLINE WARNING for point-value reports. OPA-2218.
CLAM POINT LISTINGS CORRECTED. OPA-2219.
RE-REFINED OIL PRICE CONTROLLED.
OPA-2221.
RETAIL LUMBER MEETING SET to discuss interim ceilings. OPA-2223.
CANTEEN CUPS for Armed Forces subject to price control. OPA-2226.
POTATO SEED ORDER CORRECTED. OPA—2227.
CANNED SNAP BEANS PRICED per dozen cans. OPA-2229.
‘COUNTRY SHIPPER’ DEFINED for dry edible beans. OPA-2198. ___
MALLEABLE IRON CLARIFIED as to pricing methods. OPA-2199.
OPA RAISES MELTON CEILINGS, manufacturers enabled to produce better meltons than now possible. OPA—2205.
PRICING FORMULA FIXED for new _ processed food commodities. OPA-2214.
MANILA ROPE SALES STIMULATED for use of Army and Navy. OPA-2215. «
URE CONTROL TIGHTENED to provide closer check against bootlegging. OPA-2217.
1942 ONIONS, POTATOES HIGHER for sales during May and June 1943. OPA-2237.
HOTELS, RESTAURANTS are eligible for ration banking. OPA-2244.
SUGAR FOR CANNING FORTHCOMING. OPA—2245.
Kid Salvage
-—Mats available.
HEAVY STEEL PRICES SET on dollars and cents basis for four eastern marketing areas. OPA-1977.
FARM CRATES, BOXES PRICED in six New England States. OPA-2196.
CONTROL PLANNED for prices of wheat, cotton, and certain other products not now under control. OPA-2247.
SHOE INVENTORIES DUE APRIL 10 from retailers, distributors, jobbers and manufac-tvirers OPyV⁻~756
DOUGLAS FIR CEILINGS RAISED 10 percent to cover increased costs. OPA-2194.
TIN ANODE PRICING FACILITATED in schedule for pig tin. OPA-2202:
RPS-88 DISCOUNTS MODIFIED. OPA-2203.
ADJUSTMENT PROCEDURE SET for seller who has been found by Federal Trade Commission or court to have discriminated between purchasers. OPA-2?04.
ARMY STORAGE SERVICES EXEMPT from price control. OPA-2207.
NEW RULE CONTROLS RICE PRICES. OPA-2209.
FURNITURE COSTS ADDED for packing and crating. OPA-2224.
FURNITURE GROUP PRICING FIXED to eliminate cumbersome reports. OPA-2228.
FARMERS CONFER WITH BROWN. Delegation represents farmers who do not belong to any of the “big four” organizations. OPA-2252.
MEAT RATIONING IN SECOND PHASE, producers, distributors begin to surrender points. OPA-2253.
BEEF, PORK PRICES ADJUSTED to encourage shipments into critical areas. OPA-2260.
GOVERNMENT GRADING OF LAMB ordered. OPA-2264.
RAUON REGISTRATION MODIFIED. District offices may authorize delayed filing of forms. OPA—T—754.
MACHINERY PRICE ORDER AMENDED. OPA-T—762.
Department of Agriculture
TRACTOR CONVERSIONS PLANNED from steel to rubber tires and tubes. AG-266.
CCC REPORTS 533,539 WHEAT LOANS through March 27, 1943. AG-267.
45,525 CORN LOANS REPORTED in the amount of $41,430,323.17. AG-268.
WASHINGTON MILK ORDER ISSUED designed to provide adequate supply in Washington, D. C. AG-269.
LARGER RAISIN OUTPUT NEEDED to meet military, civilian, and lend-lease needs. AG-270.
MORE BURLEY FOR DISTRIBUTION, 10 million additional pounds now available. AG-271.
FDA TO ADMINISTER HONEY restrictions instead of WPB. AG-274.
MEAT “SET-ASIDE” ORDER SUSPENDED to facilitate more even flow of meat under rationing program. AG-277.
SELECTIVE TIMBER CUTTING URGED to increase output per unit. AG-278.
WFA NAMES CONSULTANTS from packing industry. AG-279.
HEAVY SEED SHIPMENTS for replanting and restoring Allied farmland liberated from Axis. AG-236.
BALE WRAPPERS’ INDEMNITY RAISED to assure manufacture of enough wrappers for 1943 cotton crop. AG-280.
INCREASED SUPPORT PRICES FIXED for dry be^ns, dry peas, peanuts, soybeans and flaxseed. AG-281.
1,556,473 CCC- LOANS REPORTED on 2,956,988 bales of 1942-crop cotton. AG—282.
SUGAR BEET WAGE RATES RAISED from $5.22 to $8.48 per acre, with average increase of $6.59 per acre. AG-283.
BORROWERS PLAN RECORD CROPS, Farm Security Administration announces. AG-272.
FDA INVITES 13 GROCERS to serve on National Wholesale Food Industry Committee. AG-273.
MILK PRICE RISE IN DUBUQUE. AG-285.
SIOUX CITY MILK RAISED. AG-286.
OMAHA MILK PRICES HIGHER. AG-287.
SEED POTATOES SUPPLY ASSURED to protect farmers and consumer supplies. AG-289.
FROZEN ASPARAGUS PRICES RAISED in line with production costs. AG-275.
PRESSURE CANNER UNIVERSALLY SAFE, only method for canning certain types of vegetables. AG-276.
$10 PEANUT PAYMENT FIXED for farmers who delivered “excess” to designated grower agencies. AG-290.
THOMAS JEFFERSON COMMEMORATED. AG-291.
WHEAT FLOUR STEP-UP URGED by War Food Administration. AG-292.
PHILADELPHIA MILK PRICES RAISED. AG-293.
GRAIN TRADING INCREASES in March compared with February. AG-295.
LAND ARMY PLANNED of 60,000 city and town women. AG-288.
CORN FERTILIZER MADE AVAILABLE in Corn Belt States. AG-294.
MILK MARKETING MODIFIED to effect economies. AG-297.
LIVESTOCK PLANS MADE by WFA. AG-298.
DAIRY PROBLEMS CONSIDERED by Ice Cream Industry Advisory Committee. AG-299.
FAT COLLECTIONS UP 15% IN FEBRUARY
National collections of waste household fats during February increased 960,107 pounds, or 15 percent, over January and reached another new high of 6,977,664 pounds for 41.8 percent of the national quota.
Fifteen States increased their collections by more than 25 percent in the shortest month of the year. Arkansas topped the list with a gain of 110 percent over January, slightly ahead of Misssissippi which jumped 90 percent.
424
* VICTORY BULLETIN ★
^ril 14, 1943
USO Shows Carry Entertainment
To American Troops Abroad
OWI Review Reveals 266 Entertainers
In 45 Units Work Overseas
Five American entertainers were killed and four were seriously injured during the past year while carrying entertainment to American troops stationed abroad, the Office of War Information reported this week in a review of the overseas work of USO-Camp Shows, Inc. Three of the travelling USO entertainers were killed in a Royal Canadian Air Force accident near Vancouver, B. C., and two were killed and five injured in the crash of the Yankee Clipper at Lisbon on February 22.
Maxine March, a tap dancer, Christine Street, a singer and accordionist, and Adelaide Joy, a singing comedienne, were killed at Vancouver. Tamara, a singer, and Roy Rogan, a singer and dancer, were killed in the Yankee Clipper crash. Those injured in the Clipper crash were Gypsy Markoff, a singer and accordionist, Grace Drysdale, a puppeteer, Jane Froman, a singer, and Jeanne Lorraine.
Survivors of the unit involved in the Lisbon accident are making plans to continue their tour of camps abroad, ac-
SINGER CARRIES ON
Yvette, a singer who was a member of the USO-Camp Shows, Inc. unit aboard the Yankee Clipper which crashed on the Tagus River near Lisbon on February 22, is planning to carry on with her end of the show. This was clearly indicated when the following telegram was received at the headquarters of USO-Camp Shows, Inc.
DEPARTMENT HAS RECEIVED TELEGRAM DATED MARCH 10 FROM AMERICAN LEGATION, LISBON, CONTAINING FOLLOWING MESSAGE FOR YOU FROM YVETTE HARRIS. QUOTE PLEASE HAVE MOTHER SEND 2 GOWNS, 1 PAIR EVENING SHOES, 1 TUBE GREASE PAINT DIRECT TO LONDON FONDLY UNQUOTE.
(Signed) CORDELL HULL, SECRETARY OF STATE.
cording to Lawrence Phillips, executive vice-president of USO-Camp Shows, Inc. According to Mr. Phillips, 266 entertainers in 45 units have been sent overseas.
“Some units have gone where no white woman had been seen before,” Mr. Phillips said. “Three units spent the winter in Alaska. Others have entertained men stationed at jungle outposts and shared with American troops a bomb shelter previously built by the Germans. They have travelled by dogsled, Army bomber. Naval transport and commercial plane. In Hawaii, USO-Camp Shows has given mofe than 4,000 shows in the past twelve months.”
Obstacles Overcome
When the United States exchanged destroyers for British bases in the Atlantic and Caribbean, the question of sending entertainment to men stationed at the new outposts was discussed between USO and the Special Service Division of the War Department. For some time transportation ‘difficulties were an obstacle, but in October 1941 the Army provided a B-18 transport plane. USO christened it the “Flying Showboat,” filled it with Mitzi Mayfair, Jane Pickens, Ray Bolger, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, John Garfield, Chico Marx and the accordianist, Louis Polenski, and sent it out for a 13,000-mile, two-week tom- of Army posts and Naval stations in the Caribbean—a hot, grinding circuit.
The overseas units are an outgrowth of the USO shows and entertainers constantly playing at over 1000 camps and bases in the United States. When USO began a few years ago to send out its camp shows they were purely domestic entertainment. As the Army and the Navy spread out around the world, the shows began to follow the boys.
“Give me one thousand soldiers who are occasionally entertained, rather than ten thousand who have no entertainment,” General Pershin^is supposed once to have said. What America has now is millions of soldiers—and sailors and marines too—who are entertained not only occasionally, but with ever-in
creasing regularity, wherever they are, at home or abroad.
Baggage Important
The question of baggage plays a considerable part in determining the choice of entertainers to be sent abroad. Acts requiring elaborate props are, of course, out. Only small musical instruments are allowed. The big difficulty is in finding entertainers who combine in themselves—without the aid of equipment-sufficient variety of appeal to be worth valuable transportation space. If an actor is sent abroad, it is because he is considered more valuable to the war effort than his weight in munitions or supplies.
Therefore, “Nothing but first-class talent for overseas” is a guiding principle at USO-Camp Shows. Only the best entertainers on the domestic circuits are picked for foreign assignments; overseas troops have priority on entertainment as on munitions.
An entertainer who has a varied routine of singing and dancing, or singing and comedy, or all three, is at a premium. Martha Raye, for example, who has had years of vaudeville experience, is known from the radio and the screen, and excels both in singing and in hilarious comedy, is generally considered the ideal type of entertainer for overseas work.
Copies of the OWI Survey on USO-Camp Shows, Inc., can be obtained by application to the OWI Division of Public Inquiries, Washington, D. C.
—Mats available.
U. ». GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 194*