Group Captain R_. C_., RCAFVR, OBE, DSO, DFC (Bar),
RAAF Richmond,
NSW,
Australia
RAAF Richmond,
NSW,
Australia
Dearest Father:
It is I, Dame Grace, writing this to congratulate you on your appearance in the Birthday Honours. Does that sound stilted? Because one is given to understand that Dames write about themselves in the third person in English, and this is the closest one can achieve. Not that one is calling one's attention to the fact that the correct appellation in English is now "Dame Grace." One would never be so over the moon at . . .
I shall stop. And I shall not kiss the lips of my husband any the more fervently when I see him for his being now "Sir James." Though I shall be ever so grateful for the new styling, if it means not having to field the line about "Captain C_., eh? Any relation to the Captain C_.?" "Well, yes," one would reply. And then. . .
To be fair, most Americans --most people, I should say-- are unaware that no children of his marriage lived to adulthood. So they would not know that they were being whimsical --or hitting on an unacknowledged truth. And so one danced around the facts, and the implications of the answer, depending on what one wanted to imply, and to whom, especially, of course, about the mother.
How did I get on to that? Perhaps it is that I am giddy; or that I am tired and out of time for having my time and schedule abruptly reversed by the sudden retirement of our housekeeper's father from his position at FMC. As he says, he has money enough to live comfortably, and a farm to keep up, and, I suspect, the same burgeoning dreams of subdivision (on a much smaller scale) as we. What it means for me, and poor Fanny, is more domestic work than we are used to doing, at least until things settle down over there. I am almost tempted --almost-- to broach the subject with the Wongs. But I shall be strong. Their daughter is to improve herself through education, and not be immured in domestic service. It may begin as "temporary," but who knows when it would end. If making breakfast for myself is the cost of keeping the Wongs' loyalty, I can manage it, although a man, before judging, should try it with the load which I am carrying around with me.
So you will be glad to know that your son has not washed out of training, will not wash out of training, indeed, will place high in his class. He sounds only slightly melancholy at his separation from California. Miss v. Q. hangs over word of Fat Chow, who does not have much reason to stay in Japan, one would think. Except for bizarre invitations on a a trip to Turkestan via Manchuria for reasons unclear. Professor L has contacted me about the Amerasia matter, of which more anon.
As for the telephone installation in Couer d'Alene, are you teasing me? I am pretty sure that "Miss V. C." has more on her mind than receiving calls from beaus, as, after all, Lieutenant A was in town last week --I bet many a young officer would want a commission so liberal! (Speaking of, Miss v. Q.'s invitation east is now firm, but she has put it off until after her roommate is couched.)
We are glad to receive your intimation that methods and techniques are afoot to bring the war to a rapid, if not humane conclusion, for, as the Prime Minister puts it, we are looking through now towards the sunny uplands. . .
A vision of the American utopia, brought to you by Pontiac. |
Time,
18 June 1945
Correspondence
Allison Moore of Culver City,
California, pleads for understanding with the Russians; Wolfram Hill of St.
Paul points out that Russians would not be Communists if they weren’t
Christians; Wei Yuan, of all people, appeals for American condemnation of Canadian anti-Japanese
sentiment. A Canadian naval officer (name with-held) suggests that Halifax
deserved to be plundered and looted, as some Haligonians were rude to the Navy.
A random American soldier in Italy sends a letter to another soldier, who sends
it to Time. It explains that the
English are inferior to Americans for various reasons. Workers at the Chrysler Tank Arsenal suggest that the story about the Russian worker who bought his own
tank and went to join the army might have been someone pulling the paper’s leg.
The publisher writes back in his own letter to congratulate readers for being
cosmopolitans who plan to travel twice as much after the war as before. So,
good news for the travel industry, and I suspect the introduction to a longer
article in Fortune.
Chrylser Tank Arsenal (Source). I'm told that Americans today are quite irrationaly nostalgiac for the days when they went to well-paying jobs at factories in nice cars. In 1941, this was 113 acres of land occupied by renters, in corn, buckwheat and onions in Warren Country, the "Winter Rhubarb Capital of Michigan." No bus service meant that employees had to have cars. |
U.S.
At War
General Omar Bradley is to be the
new head of the Veterans Administration, replacing General Thomas Hines, who
has been much-criticised in the last year. The President also appointed new
Under-Secretaries of Agriculture and a new chairman of the National Labour
Relations Board. There was talk about talking about post-war, peacetime
conscription. Hearings at the OPA saw Republican conservatives argue for
guaranteed profits upon the lifting of
price controls, which Chester Bowles said was inflationary. The naval
air might get its own Commander-in-Chief, equal to General Arnold. Perhaps it
would be Admiral Mitscher, back from the front, currently Deputy Chief of Naval
Operations, Air. I know I will be accused of having the awful John Towers on the brain, but I will point out that Marc is back because he is too ill to continue at the front, so the question before appointing him anything is, who will be his replacement? McCain is too painfully dumb even for the navy, and that leaves --well, it leaves Tower.
The new Congress, as already noted, is fine with Bretton
Woods. General Patton has had several welcome-back parades, plus at least one
welcome-back banquet where he dissolved into tears, followed by a rally in Los
Angeles, where he was introduced by General Doolittle, who actually sounds like a general. (Patton, if you haven't heard him, sounds like a male hysteric.)
Senator Tydings went to the
Philippines with a promise of independence by next year, a hundred million
grant, and a three- to five-year low tariff policy. Today’s cover story is Bill
Mauldin’s cartoons. Senators Burton K. Wheeler and Albert W. Hawkes went to
Italy and had a forum with 250 soldiers at a Red Cross club which turned ugly
when the soldiers demanded more U.S. aid for Italy. Some American soldiers are
taking their leave on the Riviera, which is quite nice. Kate Louise Mitchell,
Philip Jacob Jaffe, Mark Julius Roth, Navy Lieutenant John Andrew Roth,
Emmanuel Sigurd Larsen, and John Stewart Service have been arrested in
Philadelphia for removing top secret documents from the State Department and
other agencies and publishing them in the magazine Amerasia, as well as Collier’s
and the Saturday Evening Post. The
paper thinks that they are communists who have been trying to influence
American official policy on China, but that the real point here is a crackdown
on “leaks.”
…And, page over, a four page
statement by Congressman Walter H. Judd on “our ally, China.” Or, more
specifically, our ally Chiang Kai-Shek. Apparently, we abandoned Chiang with our
Europe-first strategy, and now owe him even more support than ever. I hesitate
to even imagine how upset the paper will be if the southern republic falls. . .
Walter Judd, politician, physician, candidate for President in 1964 on the Goumindang ticket |
International
“The
Nations: Improvement,” Regrettably for all fans of excitement everywhere, it
looks like there will not be an anti-communist war this week. Meanwhile, Harry
Hopkins hurried to San Francisco to save the Conference. The draft constitution
of the new United Nations is discussed. The paper also publishes the draft
occupation zones in Germany. Berlin is in terrible shape. There is some thought
Hitler, or Eva Braun, his newlywed wife, might still be alive. Pastor Niemoller reveals that even though he was anti-Nazi, he still volunteered to serve in the
Germany submarine arm, because he was, after all, a patriotic German. The
Pastor, and Chancellor v. Schuschnigg are agreed that everything was all
Hitler’s fault. There is discussion of the legal briefs for the war crimes
trials, and a post-mortem is underway already in Damascus.
“Blood, Gas and Morality” Japan has
not been invaded, and has 1.75 million men under arms in the home islands.
Given the losses caused by 85,000 on Okinawa, should we consider the use of
poison gas? There are questions of morality, and of America’s reputation for
humanity, and of course the fact that it is an untried weapon, at least of
aerial bombardment. The bombardment continues, with B-29s raiding Osaka by day,
escorted by P-51s, and carrier planes attacking Kyushu. The Japanese are
reported to have new, faster fighters, and the Navy responds with the F-7F
Tigercat.
"F7F-3P Tigercat" by Kogo - Own work. Licensed under GFDL via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:F7F-3P_Tigercat.jpg#/media/File:F7F-3P_Tigercat.jpg |
The Japanese are retreating in south China, and have lost Naha
Airfield on Okinawa. Homer Bigart, frontline correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune, suggests that
the Okinawa campaign only went on so long because the Army was so cautious, and
that the Marines should have been landed behind Japanese lines. Columnist David Lawrence thinks that the campaign was the most incompetent American military
performance since Pearl Harbour, and suggests that the Navy’s heavy losses were
due to the bungling that delayed the conquest. (Chester, I'm told, is livid.) The Japanese suffered an
Australian invasion of north Borneo, and the American troops in the Philippines
are still offending, attacking, and taking territory from Yamashita in the
north, long after –I here in my mind, “long after Bataan has fallen.”
“Explained one grinning, bowing Jap prisoner, ‘Yamashita no good.’”
Whatever, I
suppose, helps General MacArthur sleep at night. (I wonder how Yamashita would
do in the early primaries?) The Marines capture a group of Korean “tea-house”
girls. The quotations are not explained.
An amusing story of Technical Sergeant
William L. Brown, of DeWitt, Arkansas, who has shown a positive gift for
capturing Japanese prisoners since bounties started being offered for them. The
story features much wrestling and heroic combat. I am sure that Uncle George
would suggest that Technical Sergeant Brown is secretly part-Japanese, can
speak the language, and just offered them a share of the bounty. The Domei News
Agency celebrates “special attackers,” this time the schoolchildren of Aka
island in Kerama Prefecture, who charged U.S. invaders, grenades in hand.
Clearly not all Japanese are so patrioitic, as Radio Tokyo warns of spies in
the nation’s midst. Probably ungrateful Korean tea-house girls.
Foreign
News
Source: Time has a full facial picture, in case anyone wants' to see if their grandmother is there. |
“Utopias and Nightmares” Prime
Minister Churchill’s “road to serfdom” speech against the Labour party gets
play. Professor Hayek is in the British general election now! He’s everywhere!
And what a handsome dismal scientist he is! I am almost tempted to read his book. . .
Source |
“Out of the Mouths of Babes”
“Britain’s babies, of whom there are more now than for 20 years (5687,130 versus
1925’s record 843,405) face a shortage of rubber for bottle nipples. Hilarious
jokes were heard in parliament, which I would not dignify were I not busy doing
my victory lap in regards the continuing rise in the British birth rate, which
you will recall James and I predicting last year. Now, our assumption was that we could model national demographics on a governed, time-decaying oscillating system, which we basically made up as we went along, with the governing constrained relaxed by war conditions. By the numbers, there is not going to be any residual effect six years after the war, so perhaps we were right for the wrong reasons? Wrong for the right reasons (as we shall see in 1951?), or just seduced by a pretty model. But, so far, we are right, and that's what counts.
“A Run for the Money” Everyone in
France lined up to get their share of the new paper money issue of as much as
6000 francs per head of household and 3000 per dependent. L’Epoque claims that the French national library keeps a cat on its
payroll at 30 francs a year.
“Desperate Activity” In Japan,
Premier Suzuki has shuffled his cabinet again, declared that Japan would fight
to the last, put out, it is rumoured, peace feelers, presided over new
directives to shore up sagging aircraft and munitions production, saw a
hardliner replace a moderate as Imperial Household Minister, and admit to grave
regional rice shortages.
“Bid for Power” Victorious in Kwangsi
Province, Chiang’s armies promptly executed four Communists, while the
Communist army advanced on Shanghai and the coast to the north.
I am sure that you will have heard
the Canadian election news. Baron de Rothschild has won his case against the Canadian
Custodian of alien property, the Supreme Court agreeing that his Canadian-held
securities were never enemy property to begin with!
Business
A small civilian ration of gasoline
has had all the pleasure motorists in Britain out this weekend, where, it
seems, they all broke down.
Hee: "Electrics by Lucas." (That's Lucas, not Lukas.) Source |
16 million square feet of British factories have so
far been reconverted for civilian production. The paper then quotes The Economist leader I’ve already
quoted, and goes on to agree with it that Britain is doomed if it lets price
rings and cartels keep prices high. Oliver Lyttleton calls for full technical
efficiency in the automobile industry. There is trouble over superseniority for
veterans. It is suggested by Ernest Schram that stocks are up too much, and
someone will have to pay for all this prosperity, and it ought to be the
wealthy European refugees who have supposedly been speculating tax free, since
they are not American citizens, and so are not taxed. (In the two months since
I sorted out James’ taxes as a temporarily resident, I have had plenty of
opportunity to look back happily and thank Heavens that Uncle George is a
citizen!) Steel mills are winding down production, uncertain of when war
cancellations or peace orders will come in.
People
Walter Winchell’s daughter, the 18
year old Eileen “Walda” Winchell eloped, then annulled her marriage three days
later. Colonel James Roosevelt is to have a baby by his second wife. Charlie
Chaplin is in trouble in family courts again, and a remarkable number of men in
the President’s new cabinet are parents to only one or two children, as was the
fashion in the day. Harry Bridges’ wife is suing for divorce. Field-Marshal
Montgomery is going under cover for the winter in a 75 room 17th
Century castle in Oldendorf. Ex-Metroplitan Opera star Kirsten Flagstad, who
has been in Norway since 1941, denied that she was a quisling and suggested
that she wanted to return to the US.
Sinclair Lewis has a reported $400,000
earnings on his new book, Cass
Timberlane. The paper is appalled by the
nice coverage E. B. White gets from the New Yorker. Arthur Leslie Collin, 28, just received the first Ph.D.
awarded in American culture, from Cleveland’s Case Western University. It is
fine scholarship which gives the paper an excuse to put in a picture of
Katherine Dunham.
Off to a rocky start, academically speaking. But if you can titillate male readers and patronise a Black activist at the same time, that's a two-fer! |
Equal opportunity. Only not really. Time has its problems with women reading it, but gays are fine. |
Theodora Roosevelt, the ballet dancer grand-daughter of the
President has married. Horace Elgin Dodge, of Dodge Motors fortune fame, has
married for the fourth time, to Lieutenant Clara Tinsley, an army nurse. Carl Crow has died. Father will be upset. Sixty-one is too young. So has Sir John Arthur Marriott. George Putnam, former husband of Amelia Earhart, has also married for
a fourth time, to 36-year-old Margaret Havilland, a U.S.O. executive. Hmm. HMM.
Radio,
Press
“P.G. to the Market” William McCreary
Ramsey II is celebrating his fifteenth year at the helm of Proctor and Gamble’s
radio division, which has seen himn create shows ranging from Rudy Vallee’s Drene Show and Beatrice Kay’s Teel Variety Hall to Ma Perkins and Truth or Consequences.
Ernie Pyle’s friend, Leslie Miller,
has been offered his column, and Arnaldo Cortesi’s special, uncensored despatch
from Argentina has ruffled some feathers.
Art,
The New Pictures, Books
A story about the Cathedral of St.
John the Divine in New York, and another about Lieutenant Saul Steinberg’s book
of drawings, All in Line.
Conflict
is edgy, but flimsily worked out. Murder,He Says, combines the most easily (that’s bad) laughable aspects of Arsenic and Old Lace with the black
humour of Charles Addam’s New Yorker cartoons,
which it is probably too late to explain. That’s
the Spirit is a comic fantasy and not a crime melodrama, but since it is
not actually funny, perhaps they could have tried for the first, the paper
implies.
Edgcumb Pinchon has a book out (Dan Sickles) about people shooting each
other over an affair in Washington in 1859, which old people still care about.
The murderer went on to have a long career, because he shot an adulterer.
Arthur E. Christy explains not just
China, but the whole East in The Asian
Legacy and American Life. Asians are spiritually advanced, it turns out.
Science,
Medicine
Penicillin turns out to be an
excellent treatment for intimate diseases. Sleepwalking is said to be a serious
problem in neurotics. A doctor at Johns Hopkins, Curt P. Richter, claims to
have found proof that rats bite men because they like the taste of human blood.
Local surveys suggest that fluorine in the water supply might just about
eliminate tooth decay. Nude sculptures were shown at Manhattan’s Museum of
Natural History, but only for science.
Science! |
The Army’s M-74 incendiary bomb is
noticed. It is a successor to the M-69, with which I may have confused it in an
ill-tempered comment about last week’s Flight.
Sociologists Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck report results showing that
sentences and punishments do not deter crime, and think that they should be in
the hands of psychiatrists and psychologists, who can instead aim to cure crime. Chicago physiologist
Nathaniel Kleitman reports that movie-watching causes changes in the body
temperature which might be correlated with its box office success. Spicy movies
make teen girls hot under the collar, in other words.
Flight,
21 June 1945
Leaders
“Bomber Command’s Offensive” Bomber
Command has produced a history of its war. I am guessing that there will be
more explanation than that of just
what the paper is talking about later in this number. Meanwhile, the paper
wants to point out that Bomber Command always better than the Germans; that
this Bomber Command history should be read alongside an article on radar, which
prospect would inspire me more if it were not described as a two-page effort (really? There’s that
much to talk about?); and to disagree with the idea that Bomber Command never
fought a “pitched battle” with the German Air Force the way that the Americans
did. Just because the massive bomber stream flew at night rather than by day
does not mean that it was not the same kind of fighting against the same enemy.
“Co-operative Research” The paper is
very jealous of the two splendid new American wind tunnels. Air Commodore
Banks, expected last week to talk about fuel chemistry, was instead on again
about the “compressibility wall,” which is the point where objects moving
through air cease to encounter it as air
(infinitely compressible) and have not yet begun to reliably encounter it as,
say, water (completely incompressible.) Physically, one bit of the wing is
straight, and encounters infinitely incompressible. Another bit is curved so much, and encounters air that is
infinitely compressible. But they are joined by a third section which
encounters air which is in-between the
two states. Mathematically, a constant term is replaced with a variable which
depends on speed, giving an unsolvable
partial differential equation. We either
solve this problem by building fast aeroplanes, or by building expensive wind tunnels. The American wind tunnels cost two-and-a-half-million each, and were
built in Buffalo by Curtiss-Wright and Cornell; and in Pasadena by Consolidated-Vultee, Lockheed, Douglas and
North American and twill be operated by the California Institute of Technology.
In summary, British companies should
also spend vast amounts on research. But not as vast as the Americans, because
everyone knows that Americans are extravagant free spenders.
War
in the Air
Because there’s still a war on.
Transport Command is flying troops to India, and the invasion of Borneo was
anticlimactic in its involvement of aircraft. RAF Lancasters bombed Hong Kong.
The paper regards this as the first notice of British heavy bombers in that
part of the world. I take it as
pointless vandalism. At least, please tell me that it is pointless, that Hong
Kong will not be flattened in order to save it!
Here
and There
The paper has an air mail letter
carried from Australia in Qantas’ first Lancastrian mail service run. India is
to have an air force of ten squadrons initially. General Pile says that
“ninety-nine and a half percent” of AA Command’s success is down to scientists.
The De Havilland Goblin is the first gas-turbine engine to pass the official
type test. (I am guessing that that would be a hundred hours running on a
bench?)
Also, Farnborough Council is upset that some of the RAE’s research
facilities are being moved, there are concerns about how the RAF is being
demobilised, an Australian makes fun of inline, air-cooled engines, and
“bombers into bungalows” continues to be funny. Rolls-Royce will continue to
operate the Scottish factory the Government built for it, though what it will
make is not settled. Desmond is to go from the AEL to be Director of Research
of the Council of the British Industrial Internal Combustion Engine Research
Association. I hope there’s money in it, because I suppose this means that he’s
the latest runner out of the chase for
Engineer Vice Admiral. Eighty Waves are to go aboard NATS aircraft as navigators on overseas flights,
making them the first American women on active service. Uncle Henry’s baby is
said to be on its way to active service. Dunlop Rubber is to have an exhibition
of all its formerly top-secret stuff.
“Overdrive Top” We are told that in
1940, President Roosevelt wanted America to gear up to produce 50,000 aircraft
a year, and now it is producing them at “the rate of 80,000” a year. Now, I
understand that the paper needs a certain number of items to fill a page. But
why this, and why now, and what does the title mean? American aircraft
production is decreasing!
“Rocket Projectile Development”
Aircraft have rockets now!
John Storey, “Australian-Built” Australians made planes during the war. For
example, Beauforts and Beaufighters, but with Wright engines, since Australian
factories were up to making slap-dash poppet engines, and not silly and
over-engineered sleeve valve ones. They also made domestic designs, including
the Wirraway trainer and Boomerang (if they don't want people making fun of Australia, why do they--) fighter, and were just beginning to build
Mosquitoes. It’s not clear to me whether or not they were making Merlins for
the Mosquitoes, but I expect not.
“Overdrive Top” We are told that in
1940, President Roosevelt wanted America to gear up to produce 50,000 aircraft
a year, and now it is producing them at “the rate of 80,000” a year. Now, I
understand that the paper needs a certain number of items to fill a page. But
why this, and why now, and what does the title mean? American aircraft
production is decreasing!
“Radar: Partial Release of Some
Systems used by RAF in Defeating the Enemy by Defence, and Fighter and Bombing
Attacks” Information has been released in Electronic
Industries in the United States about British radar. The paper covers it. There
are no details that will be new to you, so I am just going to pick out what
interests Electronic Industries, which
is the fact that using radar requires
measuring the very small variations in phase of the reflecting from the
outgoing wave, which corresponds to time differents on the order of 100
microseconds. That is some clever electrical engineering! Having run out of
things to say about the article, the paper ads that various famous air marshals
were involved, and that airborne equipment requires very neat little Plan
Position Indicators, whereas ground installations can work off cathode ray
oscilloscopes. Presumably, the “PPIs” are on their way to being very compact
and accurate “CROs,” and since televisions are essentially cathode ray
oscilloscopes themselves, we will see the benefit when microwave radio towers beam
Uncle George’s friend (rather tiresome in large doses, I think) into our living rooms. Finally, credit is due to the Great
Men of Science, Pye, Ltd, and, as I already wandered off into saying, “leading
British television manufacturers.”
“New Aircraft Types” The Air
Ministry is also tired of keeping secret the Westland Welkin, a high-altitude
single-seat fighter with a specially-designed version of the Merlin, and a
cabin supercharger; a version of the Sunderland with Pratt and Whitney engines;
a version of the Halifax with Hercules engines; and a version of the Warwick
with Centaurus VII engines. (That’s a lot of versions of the Centaurus for an
engine we have hardly begun to hear about. Is it too much to hope for that it
will soon turn up on an aircraft fit to grace the walls of your youngest?)
“Britain’s Largest Flying Boat” Has
the paper mentioned that it is very, very excited about the Shetland? Well, it
is!
“Simple Performance Testing: How the
Ranger Aircraft Engine Determines Take-offs, Climbs, Glides and Landing Runs”
This was the E. T. Jones lecture to the Royal Aeronautical Society, and the
answer is that they do timed-exposure camera-plotted graphs, just like everyone
else, but Ranger is the first aeroengine firm to set up a rig. As far as the
paper knows
.
Indicator
Discusses “Proper Propaganda: ‘Average Person’ Sublimely Ignorant of Important
Facts Concering Safety: Information More Useful than Slogans” The airgoing
public needs more information about maintenance, replacement, training, etc.,
than slogans.
“Navy Appoints First Air Admiral”
Wasn’t that Admiral Phillimore? A very charming old gentleman, for a bigoted old Tory, I thought. Anyway, it’s
Dennis. B. J. Hurren spends most of a page on all of Dennis’s wonderful powers,
responsibilities and such, but it is Hurren, so I am not going to read it.
“M.A.P. Exhibition” How the Ministry
of aircraft Production won the war, with toys for boys.
Dummies of very big bombs were shown, and airfield wreckers, and an older
Halifax, and presumably even more exciting things.
Civil
Aviation News
Tasman Empire Airways will have
completed 1000 crossings of the Tasman Sea this month, bringing New Zealanders
and Australians closer together than ever before, a worthy goal, I am sure. How
many sheep can you fit on a . . . ? BOAC Boeings have also flown many flights.
Various services here and there are authorised, forbidden, planned, flown. China,
Ireland, the north of Scotland, Argentina and New Guinea are all in the news. The
Tudor exists more. Now that civil aviation is happening everywhere, Congress
has agreed to stop talking about talking about civil aviation next month.
Without a United States of Europe to blather about, what will keep them busy? They
must be very jealous of the British, who not only have the USE to talk about,
but refuse to stop talking about talking about civil aviation, in the bargain.
“Bomber Command’s Offensive” According
to the information box at the head, Bomber Comamnd dropped a million or so tons
of bombs in just under 400,000 sorties, including about 750,000 tons of high
explosives and 200,000 tons of incendiaries. It was done by night bombers,
which “defeated the [German] bomber” by blowing up all the factories and such.
(Mainly the “such,” as night bombers were not very good at blowing up
individual factories.) Britain ultimately built 200/300 heavy bombers a month,
suffered varying but often quite high casualties, faced a large night figher
force, continuously adapted its tactics and techniques, used daylight raids
once the German air force was out of the picture, used ever improving “navigational
aids.”
The paper reviews Aircraft Armament, by Louis Bruchiss,
and endorses his conclusion that the next air war will not consist of air
staffs pressing buttons to actuate robot bombers.
Source 2000s versus. . . |
1945. |
Correspondence
B. J Hurren writes to say that he
did not mean to insult “Vice-Admiral Boyd, the late Fifth Sea Lord” in a recent
notice. B. J. Hurren clearly should not be held responsible for the words that
spill from his brush, as he seems to have very little to do with them. “Realist”
writes that various difficulties should be considered along the way to building
a national air museum. Mainly, that central London needs to be knocked down to
make room for it, and this is unrealistic. R. L. Hughes seems to be complaining
that his application to be a Technical Officer at the MAP. John Grierson writes
to disagree with Oswald Short about how flying boat mooring was done in the old
days. Or agree! Like Mr. Hurren, I’m ignoring this. And spending more time
telling you that I’m ignoring it than it would have cost me to read the letter.
Time,
25 June 1945
Correspondence
Mrs. Charles Frost of New York City
passes on a letter from her son in the
Army, who is happy about peace and the end of the blackout, curfew, bomb
shelters, starvation.
Captain H. Peter Rand reports that it turns out that
hardly any Germans were Nazis. Ronald Matthew, a self-described volunteer, says
that Brits are a bit of all right. Studebaker’s Gaston E. Marque reminds us
that the “Weasel” amphibious vehicle is not a Jeep.
U.S.
At War
More Generals have come home,
including Jimmy Doolittle and Alexander Patch. They have notes excusing them
from General Eisenhower. There is continuing optimism about there being no
World War III at least through the upcoming Big Three meeting, perhaps at
Potsdam, near Berlin. Harry Hopkins is still in the Administration. Hugh Fulton
is, now. Talk about talking about peacetime conscription. General Eisenhower
had a nice reception in London, will have one in Paris shortly. Southern
senators are upset that the annual anti-poll tax bill is going through the
House to its inevitable defeat in the Senate, and about the Adminstration’s
failed attempt to create a permanent Fair Employment Practices Commission. The
Office of War Information’s budget has been restored, in case there’s a war
again. The Republicans have found someone to run against Mayor LaGuardia. Don’t
they do that in boxing to build up the champ’s record? General Stilwell thinks
that the Japan war will last another two years. General Patton thinks that
there will be another war eventually
soon. USS Saratoga is back in action
after taking a kamikaze hit off Iwo Jima on 21 February 1945. George Patton
called at the White House along with four Medal of Honour winners. Westbrook
Pegler has told another unflattering story about Eliot Roosevelt, to the effect
that his proposed TBS broadcasting network of 1939 was involved in some kind of
corrupt dealing with the A and P grocery chain. Cigarette supplies are back to normal.
“Races: Japs Are Human” This is the conclusion of Commander Alexander Leighton’s The Governing of Man,
published this week. “Oh, it were better to be a poor fisherman than meddle
with the governing of men.”
International
Germans are setting right to work to
rebuild their country. Ribbentrop has been arrested. There are still procedural
wranglings going on in San Francisco, where we feel a little hurt that
everyone’s in such a hurry to leave. Is it something we said? Or the fact that
everyone’s tired of bunking two or three to a room in San Francisco?
“The Nations” Perhaps we shall have
World War III after all, because the Russians are not only Russians, but
communists, too, which is worse. Also, Poland.
“No Honorable Cessation” Northern
Luzon is difficult terrain, which is why General Yamashita is still holding
out. Engineers are hard at work building roads in the midst of the rainy
season. General Buckner was killed in action in Okinawa, following Ernie Pyle,
but before his death predicted that Okinawa would fall and promised an
“honorable cessation” under terms to the garrison. 520 B-29s are now flying in
raids, and Japan is running out of first-class targets, which means that the
second-class ones are up next. I notice that General LeMay thinks that
Liberators will be used in the near future. I’m not sure why, though. U.S.
Tenth Fleet has been dissolved, and this was the occasion for a report by
Admiral King on the U-boat war, which was very long and difficult, not just
because of torpedo attacks, but also because of mining actions, which, for
example, closed New York harbour for three days, and the Chesapeake twice.
“The Politics of Rockets” This is
the first anniversary of the buzz bomb offensive, and also an election, not
that the two are related in any way I can construe from my all-too brief
reading. Peter Koch, an assistant to the Gestapo chief in Rome, was executed in
public in Rome this week. Leopold may return to Belgium, causing a bit of a
crisis, while Wilhelmina did return to the Netherlands, quite without. General
Franco received 500 Spanish diplomats and assorted others after they crossed
the border with France, travelling from Germany in a sealed train. Eight
passengers were killed in train-related rioting and violence in the crossing
from Switzerland to Spain.
“Bolus” Talks about Indian
independence! From the look of things, we might see India independent before
we’re done talking. Actually, that isn’t surprising at all. Of all the things
lately done with talking involved, only the United Nations waited for the end
of the talking to be done. I hope that isn’t a bad sign for its future! Also, a
phone line now connects China and India, and the Koumintang continues to shoot
people, now turning on the "corrupt," in a remarkable display of hypocrisy. The Nationalists are also cracking down on newspapers which deviate from
the guiding principles of Dr. Sun. If Heaven has not already turned its back, it shall soon enough.
Latin Americans get a full page to
be excitable on in this number.
Business
The 1945 crop will be very good in general, but the cold,
drizzly weather in June means a short corn crop, perhaps, and hog shortages.
Late rain and frost may also impact victory gardens, leading to a significant
food shortage. Aluminum is now available priority-free for civilian goods. One
billion pounds of second-rate ingots will be released by the Surplus Property
Board, for whatever use manufacturers think they can make of it. The French
auto industry, having got a good headstart into peace getting the Army moving
again, is now producing vehicles on its own. There are, meanwhile, vast
stockpiles of American war surplus building up in Europe. Cuts in US war
production may therefore be on the conservative side, if this material can be
fetched back for the Japanese war. Ford, which cannot get chrome in the United
States, will have its parts chromed in restriction-free Canada. Gold mining is
allowed in the United States again, and American steel production capacity
reached 95 million tons
People
Charles Lindbergh reports that Paris
is nothing like the old days. “I have been stopped on the street only once.”
Colonel Lindbergh hasn't changed! Shirley Temple has graduated from
high school.
Governor Davis, the songwriter politician who found time while
governing Louisiana (though how hard can it be?) to write You are my Sunshine, is to have a Saturday night radio show.
Science,
Medicine, Education
“The Navy Looks Ahead”
You and I may, thanks to James, know
Admiral Harold Gardiner Bowen as the man behind the carburisation crisis in the
navy’s wartime machinery plant, but for the paper, he is the man the Navy
trusts to head all research and development. Well, given that admirals
apparently can’t fail out of the
navy, and that he’s young for an admiral at a mere 61, why not? If the Admiral couldn’t lose the war for
America, what harm will Bowen do?
Because Bowen is the spitting image of Bunsen Honeydew, that's why
“Maedchen in Uniform?” Ernest Hooton, the physical anthropologist of Harvard, says that America should conscript women as well as men, thereby restoring
balance to the family by teaching wopmern as well as men martiqal skills(?),
allowing for posture training, eradicating “peculiarly localised fatty
deposits,” and teaching them “to wear pants without spectacle.”
Well. With that out there, I go on to notice a story about alcoholism, which
may have a psychological explanation, and starts young. France saw 500,000
babies born annually during the occupation. Many of these are thought to have
had German fathers. (Oh, la, those French!) That birth rate fell consistently
below the death rate, so that France’s population fell by 4 million, including
the prisoners of war. The return of 2 million so far has helped matters, and
now comes news that the French government has bought £25 million in
testosterone in London. La! Some more. GI
schools have now opened in France, as have elementary schools in Belgium and
Aachen. Belgian education is boring compared with Nazi, we are told.
Press,
Art, The New Pictures, Books
“The Future of Doubletalk” the Washington Post is upset about all
the new words that politicians use, such as “activate” and “sweat.” John Boettiger is stepping down from the publisher’s position at the Hearst paper
in Seattle, ending that strange alliance. Izvestia
says something about the American press which is wrong, just like
everything it says, because it is an official Russian communist paper. Marshall
Field continues his campaign to extend leftist views in the American press by
starting left-leaning local papers. Kenneth Langley, 16-year-old San Francisco
Conference correspondent for the Christian
Science Monitor is something else. Judy Garland and Deanna Durbin have
married, although not to each other, as Ernest Hooton might speculate. So has
Jinx Falkenberg, while Amelie Rives, author of The Quick or the Dead, has died.
Amelie Rives in 1890 |
Blood on the Sun features James Cagney in a slightly-historical melodrama of
would-be Japanese world conquerors. Those
Endearing Young Charms is a movie with romance and kissing in it, which the
paper doesn’t like so well as Cagney judo-chopping people. (It would be a recommendation to me, but I can't go see movies right now, poo!)
Alice Payne Hackett, Fifty Years of Best-Sellers is an
exercise in making the forgotten books of yesterday interesting again on the
strength of their being old and quaint and all those things. Remember Turkish
corners and Charles Dana Gibson? Bicycle scorchers? Trilby? See Here, Private Hargrove? Old people do. (Well, not so much the last, which came out last year.) In the same
spirit, an autobiography of the late Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, revealed as then “Q” of Victorian thriller fame. Old
people must really remember him,
because the paper gives him three pages.
Artzybasheff’s “Island Hopping”
mural for Manhattan’s Grand Central Station is setting mouths gaping.
Flight,
28 June 1945
Leaders
“the Air-based Campaign” “GeneralSir Joseph Slim” says that Burma was an air-based campaign. I wonder what
General Sir William Slim thinks? (They're both knights, just like my husband, and must be feeling uncommonly pleased with themselves.)
“Per Avro ad Astra” The Avro Tudor
exists even still more again plus.
“Night and Weight” The paper has
noticed that the Americans are conducting night area fire raids on Japan. It’s
only been three months, so that’s quick work. It points out that night raids
allow bombers to drop very much larger bomb loads than in day raids. Also, very
big bombs are involved.
War
in the Air
The monsoon in Burma means that aircraft
are not much involved in the non-fighting. Okinawa has fallen. It is still
quite close to Kyushu as these things are reckoned for lack of closer places.
Japanese suicide bombers have not done well against British carriers.
Aircraft carriers are designed to have airplanes crash into them. Or, at least, they should be. |
“Operational Sorties” Statistics of
sorties and losses of RAF commands are released. I started writing out the
casualty statistics before reminding myself how well you must know them.
Here
and There
Roxbee Cox, “Smithy” and his mate,
John Ulm, have been about. The paper is mad keen on "Smithy." I've no idea why. RAF has investigators looking for missing
aircrew. The six-bladed Rotol contra-rotating airscrew recently shown is
designed for a double, contra-rotating engine shaft. An Australian
parliamentarian thinks that Goering should be abused and tortured, because he
is bad. A limited number of RAAF pilots are “to be made available” to the
Pacific Fleet. Goodyear Aircraft is making airships for intercontinental
routes. Air Marshal Sir John Baldwin is a new trustee of the Imperial War
Museum. An exciting lecture on the Bendix Stromberg carburettor is in store for
attendants at the southeast area council of the SLAE at the Zenith Company’s
premises at Honeypot Lane, Stanmore, Middlesex. Only one linethrower pistol is
authorised for use by the BOAC, and it is the Schermuly Pistol Rocket Apparatus. The RAF Association is expected to increase very largely, just like
the RAF.
“Gas Turbines for Aircraft
Propulsion” This is a summary of a paper read to the Derby branch of the Royal
Aeronautical Society by Dr. S. G. Hooker of Rolls-Royce. It is fairly long and
technical, but the summary points are the turbines are currently most useful at
high speeds and high altitudes, because of the limited compression available to
them compared with piston engines. (This leading to lower thermodynamic
efficiency.) Future multi-stage centrifugal, or especially axial compressors
will be more competitive. A great deal of work remains to be done, and
Rolls-Royce is apparently doing it.
“M.A.P. Exhibition” The opening
ceremony was nearly rained out, and many exhibits were not ready in time.
Various current and former ministers ensured that it was in no way a partisan event.
“The Avro Tudor: Survey of the First
British Long-range, High-spped, High-Altitude Luxury Passenger Aircraft:
Pressurised Passenger Aircraft; Production Quality” Flight has a special, copyright drawing to show! It can take a
variety of engines, and is very exciting. Production details are laid out, the
layout is explained, and so is the pressure system, intended to give positive 5
½ lb/sq in at 25,000ft. We note that the key feature is an “ingenious Westland
pressure system.” To think that a week ago we were forbidden to know that
Westland had built a high-altitude, pressurised fighter. I’m left feeling more
sympathy for writers and censors, and
intensely curious about what kind of hijinks the Westland Welkin might have
been up to in the war. Unfortunately, it's a tailwheel design, so, pass.
Civil
Aviation News
Vancouver airport is, indeed, to be
expanded as a Pacific hub. A Calcutta-Rangoon service is to be established.
Other services are to be established, American civil flying is up, and BOAC has
conducted a thorough test of reheating apparatus for quick-frozen, re-cooked
food on long runs. Immersion heaters are the most immediately promising
solution. No word on the undoubtedly titanic successes of the Whirlwind Oven.
“Bomber Command’s Offensive: Part II
of the Official Story of Britain’s Heavy Bombers” You already know all of this,
and I’ve enough to do to keep up with the new news, never mind the old, so I will
pass it over.
Correspondence
R. Marsh wants a competition to
determine the vest kind of private owner design, as in America. H. Goodall
writes that anything can happen when an airscrew blade is lost, and did. C. A. Rea agrees. His example is a full airscrew
from a Rolls-Royce Eagle, which detached from a Handley Page O/400, complete
with its reduction gearing. V. D. Dickinson wants to argue with “Indicator”
about civil pilot ratings. “Upstart” wants to argue with “Indicator” about
something. T. E. G. Gardiner agrees that engineers should fly. Frederick
Brundle, (Captain, RA), writes that the “high, fast and heavy” bombers proposed
by the paper may become obsolete before they are even ready for service, as
defence advances to meet attack. Radar will progress to plot them, and they
will be constantly harassed by radio-controlled rockets from below, and,
possibly, by pilotless rammer aircraft from every direction. Besides, their
bases will be under constant, long-range rocket bombardment. The paper hopes, “for
the sake of old England,” that Captain Brundle(?) is right. But at a deeper level,
it is sure that he is wrong, because 500mph, 100,000lb bombers flying at 50,000feet would be just so amazing. I mean, because attack is the best form of
defence.
Aviation,
June 1945
Editorials
James H. McGRaw, Jr. “Russia and
America: Allies or Else” Junior calls the Red-bashing to order along with the
Russians, who are also at risk of provoking us.
Leslie E. Neville, “Our Immediate
Steps To Permanent Peace” More planes, more research, a good plan for dealing
with surplus.
Blaine Stubblefield, “Carrier
Aircraft Maintenance is Really Tough” Stubblefield reports from the field
again, and, again, it is from a carrier, Bonhomme
Richard. It is difficult, planes are heavily-handled by carrier operations
(a 20 foot drop to the deck is not uncommon), and space is short. Fortunately,
the men who maintain the ships are all from virtuous places like farms, and
have no faith in ideas of the “rights of labour.” Or none they would share with
Stubblefield, anyway. I suppose the loud, beery obnoxiousness. . .
Five articles on finance, marketing
and airline operating costs follow before we reach a Chester S. Ricker report
on “Design Details of Aeronautical Products, Inc., Helicopter”
Charles D. Flagle, Design Engineer,
Aviation Gas Turbine Div.(?), Frank W. Godsey, “See Prime Role for Gas Turbine in
Aircraft of Tomorrow” Almost worth quoting just for the Aviation-speak title. Jets are more efficient at high speed,
turboprops at medium, reciprocating at low. Etc.
Julian Rogoff, Assistant Chief
Engineer, Burndy Engineering Co., “These Connection Techniques Solve Aluminum
Cable Problems”
Entirely different kind of wires, but worth noting. |
E. K. Fry, Assistant Superintendent,
Curtiss-Wright Columbus Plant, “Induction Heating Speeds Helldiver Production”
Case hardening some lock pins, reworking tools, localised annealing, these are
just some of the exciting uses of a portable induction heating coil.
K. R. Jackman, “Trimming Research to
the Postwar Pocketbook” I suppose it’s a good corrective to the calls for all
research, all the time. Before the war, not enough research was done,
especially during the Depression. During it, more was done. After the war,
cost-benefit analysis will be needed.
Someone has got to do a cultural study on the rise of "research and development" some day. |
After the shop practice and
maintenance articles, yet another one on super-flying boats, this time a
proposed Blackburn “155 ton airliner.” Pressurised, even! At the other extreme,
an article on good airport turfing practices.
m. J. Wainwright, Pilot Officer,
RAF, “Distant Reading Compass Takes Lag out of Headings” An article about the
“new” instrument.
The Washington Windsock notices that
President Truman knows about aviation, that President Roosevelt is dead, that
the local range landing system is dead, and that there is more competition than
ever for radio frequency channels.
Aviation
Manufacturing
Cutbacks! Unit production in April
was 6,142. While this is low, it is 64 above the low-balled schedule, and since this is the last two-war month, from here on we can take official cognisance of the cutbacks and say goodbye to endless, embarrassing stories about declining production numbers. They were never as bad as they seemed, because producing bad aircraft was never good for the war effort, except insofar as they were still better than Russian models. The United States managed to make more than enough good airplanes in their total to win the war, after all! A picture of Wright’s newly
designed Cyclone 7 700hp light aeroengine shows where half hte problem lies. This is pretty dim-witted management. How does the company expect to get into a sector which Lycoming and
Fairchild engines have locked up when it is competing against itself?
And if that seems like a truncated version of my usual review of Aviation, it is, because I had trouble getting a copy, until Miss C. took it upon herself to descend into the depths of the engineering library to make sure that I got the university's copy as soon as it turned up, as otherwise it would be waylaid by someone, and never see the light of day.
America is a strange place, sometimes.
America is a strange place, sometimes.
Well. That was incomprehensible. The 23 June number of Time has a half page picture of some teenaged Korean "tea girls" (original style) captured by the Marines on Okinawa. I was going to post the picture as an illustration of the magazine's smarmy style before I realised that their grandchildren could conceivably see it.
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