Group Captain R_. C_.,
OC Special Intelligence Interpretation Unit,
RAAF Richmond,
NSW, Australia.
Fatherly Brother:
One more note from me from San Francisco. You will be glad to hear that your daughter-in-law is to be released from the hospital next week, that your grand-daughter flourishes, as also the twins under the care of Fanny and Mrs. Judith. Babies, babies, you will say, and well you might! Certainly I shall, at least when I get back from Napa, and before I am off to Virginia. What an exciting life I lead!
Things will not be all domestic for your return, however. We have word that the Navy is to send your son to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for the Fall term. But Brother George's ship is expected in Vancouver next month. All are disappointed to hear that you must fly to London before your release. Nevertheless, Christmas in Santa Clara!
Here at home, "Miss C." and "Miss V.C." combine to bring interesting word. Apparently, the low interest rates are presenting some difficulties to the university as it seeks to renew certain mortgages written at its foundation. Their sixty year terms are up at the end of the year, and the holders have expressed some reservations about renewing at current terms. The interesting point here is that the instruments are said to be very candid in certain matters, specifically in naming a certain former President as co-beneficiary. And so did the Governor provide for his bastard, you might say. But the point is an individual is not, and cannot be, a charitable institution. Investors with long memories, I am told, might still take some personal satisfaction in getting their money back.
Or, more likely, a bit of judicious blackmail --it is not as though this is likely tobe allowed to become public! Now here is the thing. The Engineer has conceived the notion that "Lieutenant A" is the young man to call around San Francisco, and perhaps elsewhere (I am told that there is even a brigadier in Berlin holding a note) to get the matter settled and the mortgages rolled over. This is where "Miss V.C." is concerned, because somehow an arrangement for her to drive Lieutenant A around the city has been proposed. Well, driving is courting in these parts --I am not sure about espionage!
We shall see if there is a safe in a Gold Coast mansion for Wong Lee to investigate at the end of this; and whether the Engineer is more embarrassed to be known as the son of the Governor, or as a half-caste, whether or not his mother was an "Indian princess."
I Remain Your Most Humble and Obedient Little Sister,
v. Q
Flight,
16 August 1945
“Peace on Earth” The paper was at
the point of going to press when the Japanese surrender became official. The
paper is pleased that Britain does not have to fight the “unbeaten millions of
the Japanese Army,” that no more atomic bombs need to be dropped, and that we
can now liberate the POWs.
“New Air Lords” There have to be
some Cabinet ministers who are peers, the paper says, so it is good that there
are some Labour peers, and one of them will be the
gentleman-about-the-Air-in-the-Lords. He has various names, as Engish milords
do, but might be recognised as “Viscount Stangate,” or “Wedgwood Benn.” As also
the chinaware? Another, also to do with Air, is Lord Winster, while Wing
Commander John Strachey will be their secretary in the Commons. Or the
secretary of one of them. The paper seems to assume that the reader knows these
things.
“Atomic Energy” On the other hand,
no-one knows what happens when a neutreion collides with a nucleon to make
electreions and photoneions, except people who aren’t allowed to say. So then
they whisper in the ears of their friends, who explain to the press, who
proceed to write down the Chinese whispers.
“War in the Air”
Japan really ought to have
surrendered. And then it did. There are many reasons why it ought to have
surrendered. The paper will now fill out a page-and-a-half explaining them. The
one reason it did not is that it resisted unconditional surrender. Now,
finally, it has surrendered unconditionally, on the condition that the Emperor
be retained as a guarantee that the Japanese will have some say on their future
constitution. Since the Allies have always said that was what would happen,
this was not really a condition, and so this is a genuine unconditional
conditional surrender. If the Germans didn’t hate Hitler so much that we wanted
unconditional surrender as much as anyone, I suppose the moral would have been
that we ought to have crashed some planes into ships to see what we could get.
Also, the endlessly talked-up Martin
Mars crashed less than two weeks after entering service, and Air Commodore Gayford, of the Long Range Flight, has died.
Here
and There
The Mediterranean Air Force has been
disbanded. Air News tells us of a new and superior German parachute. The English have larded up the board of the new
College of Aeronautics with various worthies, including half-dead air marshals,
dubious businessmen, ancient scientists, and slightly less ancient mariners. Obtaining actual students remains a high priority, and
some may be procured next year.
J. Langdon Davies, who writes about science for the Daily Mail, grets the “terrific news that Allied scientists have at least succeeded in tapping the cosmic energy of the atom” by suggesting that the new government need no longer bother nationalising the coal, electric and gas industries, as they are about to become obsolete and irrelevant due to atomic energy. The NACA, on the other hand, thinks that many years of research and development will be required before tiny little atomic bombs are exploding in engine cylinders, so that the petrol engine has ten years of life in it yet.
It would take aeronautical science another seventy years to figure out how to divide by zero. Also, the SFU Len Norris collection has the worst seach functionality ever. |
J. Langdon Davies, who writes about science for the Daily Mail, grets the “terrific news that Allied scientists have at least succeeded in tapping the cosmic energy of the atom” by suggesting that the new government need no longer bother nationalising the coal, electric and gas industries, as they are about to become obsolete and irrelevant due to atomic energy. The NACA, on the other hand, thinks that many years of research and development will be required before tiny little atomic bombs are exploding in engine cylinders, so that the petrol engine has ten years of life in it yet.
"Ford Nucleon" by Source. Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ford_Nucleon.jpg#/media/File:Ford_Nucleon.jpg |
In brief news, some French managers
and technicians are in the country looking at air factories. The Australians
are closing RAAF schools, while Moscow radio reported a model airplane poweredby a rubber band which stayed aloft for 26 minutes, covered 4 miles, andreached 7,600 feet. Admiral Preston is to be the new chairman of Titanine,
while Peter Masefield is going to Washington as Air attache, and Brigadier
General Millison is the new American AOC Mediterranean, though Americans need
to say “Commanding General, US Army Air Forces, Mediterranean Theatre of
Operations.”
“Indicator,” “Flying the Spitfire XIV: A Few Impressions of the Later Spitfire Marks: The War’s Ever-Young
Veteran: Maintaining Consistent Handling Qualities with Quantity Production”
As Indicator says, the only aircraft
from before 1938 still flying in combat at the end of the war were the Ju 88,
the Douglas Boston, and the Spitfire. Aside from the much changed B-17, the
Spitfire has by far the longest service career. It’s also the smallest, though.
Surely that ought to count for something? And, of course, he misses the Bfw109.
The Spitfire XIV is the long-winged, long-nosed, five-bladed Spitfire variant
flying the two-stage, two-speed blower-equipped Griffon 65. Indicator tells us
that, apart from the better-organised but still “busy” cockpit, his first
striking impression was the oversized throttle with its long range of action.
This is necessary, he tells us, because there is such a range of power needed,
and because torque is so great late in the takeoff. You need lots of space to
shift the throttle in, in other words, to have the control you need not to flip
your plane on its back and die in flames. Other than that, handling is swell! All the constant speed controls are automatic and inter-connected,
so the new pilot cannot kill himself
with his propeller, carburettor, radiator gills, or, in normal conditions,
booster pump. In unusual conditions, presumably, it makes a good suicide. Trim setting is easy: full port bias, so that the plane goes
forward, and not in the direction (round and round and round) that the spinning
crankshaft would like it to go in. Providing that the tyres don’t blow up. The
engine has +18 boost, the Griffon having been systematically hardened to such
metallurgical extremes by a few tweed-clad gentlemen taking time out from
reading Ovid and shooting grouse.
Once (very quickly) at altitude, the Spitfire XIV is an acrobatic
delight, thanks to a large, adjustable tab, of the automatic-servo type. The
horse may be a maniac, but the reins are tight.
Perhaps I sound bitter here, but I
am recalling some things said about the performance of the later marks of the
Bf109, where the same problems of vicious handling with the imbalance of power
and control surfaces are as examples of the mediocrity of German engineering to
be seen. And, of course, since German engineers are all products of
the great Evangelical universities, it comes right back to the wooden-headed,
all-theorising North German mind. (South German minds too alcohol-softened. . !)
Finally, the Spitfire XIV is much
harder to crash at low speeds than it might have been.
“Atomic Fission: Mr. Churchill’s
Statement on the History of the Evolution of the New Bomb”
Credit is given to His Majesty’s
Government in the first instance for recognising the potential of the atomic
bomb, and before the Coalition, so that it was under Sir Neville Chamberlain,
and before Churchill entered the government that the universities of Cambridge,
London (Imperial College), Liverpool and Birmingham were set to work on the
atomic bomb. At the time of the Coalition, the work was assigned to the Ministry
of Aircraft Production, and a committee under the leadership of Sir George Thomson set up. Mrs. C. would point out that he has the right last name. “Why not?” Mrs. C. burns with never being able to say that she is at the party because of her true family’s money and
influence, while I see the point of the son of the great man. He was chosen
to be a bureaucrat, not an inventor, after all. Privilege will not make you a
better physicist, I am told, but it but it certainly wears off the edges!
Make fun of my haircut all you want. My son and seven of my other students won Nobel prizes.What's your advisor done for you? |
From Thomson’s committee, leadership
was passed to Sir John Anderson once it was established that an atomic bomb
might be feasible in this war, within the Department of Industrial and
Scientific Research, with the codename “Tube Alloys.” I wonder what Sir J.C.
would say about that, after his adventures with American tube alloys? At this
point, names must be mentioned, including Milord Brabazon, Sir James Chadwick,
Professor Peierls, Drs. Halban, Simon and Slade, Sir Charles Darwin, and
Professors Cockcroft, Oliphant and Feather.
From October 1941, the Americans more-or-less took over, because they
had all the money. Canada has mines. Thank God we beat the Germans! The Prime
Minister congratulates himself on sending commandoes to blow up the heavy water
plants in Norway that might have had something to do with atomic bombs. But, I
am told under oaths of confidence, did not. Though as I understand it, you
would know, having been busy at one point developing thousands of feet of film
in search of stray atomeons such as might have been given off by a “heavy water
moderated bomb.” (I use Tommy’s words, because otherwise I
would say things like “Fifth Ray” and “luminiferous aether.” How does that come
to have a character, anyway? I understand why Burroughs gets translated into
Chinese, but what Chinese reader ever cared about the “luminiferous aether?”)
“Multi-Point Injection: The
S.U.Company’s Contribution to Direct Fuel Injection”
The SU Company wants everyone to
know that their direct injection
system wasn’t just copied from Daimler-Benz. It was an improved copy. Sure, the one SU actually built, supplied injected fuel into
the supercharger, but SU wanted to inject it into each individual cylinder from
the beginning, and eventually got permission from the Air Ministry. Now they have a multi-point injection system like the Germans, only with
lower injection pressure and a longer induction period. This has become more
important in recent years because it is hard to distributed tetraethyl lead
equally to all cylinders, and the SU system alleviates the effects of too
little lead (predetonation) and too much (corrosion.) The final paragraph
leaves me uncertain that this system is actually in service yet, or whether it
has perhaps been removed from service pending a solution to TEL corrosion.
“Fifty-Fifty Air Force” As part of
its ongoing effort to not be part of World War II, Turkey accepted a variety of
German and British aircraft to let them know that the Fuehrer and the Prime
Minister were thinking of them. The paper finds it surprising that the Turks
prefer the Heinkel III to the Liberator III.
V. L. Gruberg, “It Must Not Happen
Again: Control Problems of German Aviation: Secret Preparations After Last
Defeat: Lessons of the Past” As any busybody headmaster can tell you, the only
way to stop student hijinks is with busybodying, petty regulations, and a
resolute refusal to address grievances, and possibly veiled threats of a
Polish invasion.
“The Norden Bomb Sight: A System of
Instruction Between Autopilot and Bomb Sight: An Automatic Speed and Distance
Calculator” Carl Norden invented his bombsight “as early as 1928,” and his
automatic pilot, the Stabilised Bomb Approach Equipment, in 1935. I mostly heard about it in 1942, when the Air Ministry's officials could not believe that it would turn out to be as primitive as it was. SBAE, “Like
all autopilots,” consists of gyros, servo-motors and follow up systems “to
render the degree of control surface deflection proportional to the deviation
of the aircraft.” I think that means that the autopilot automatically pilots
the airplane. I am very lucky with my Chinese engineering
dictionary! With the SBAE activated, the bombardier actually steers the plane
through the autopilot, with flight gyros and banking motors.
The plane being set on an intercepting course, it then remains to
calculate when a bomb released at the right point in time and space will strike
the target, using various details of target movement (if moving), wind speed
and so on. The Norden bombsight calculates all of this automatically. So that is all that the bombsight itself is, a calculating machine!
“Seafire XV Off the Secret List” The
Navy has a version of the Spitfire with a 1,890hp Merlin engine, making it the
fastest naval fighter . . . in Great
Britain. I do not know what the fastest naval fighter in Germany is, but I imagine it is a
biplane with floats, because that’s how long it has been since the German navy
had time and energy for that sort of thing. I wonder what England’s excuse is?
Civil
Aviation
“C.E.R.C.A.: Commonwealth and Empire
Conference on Radio for Civil Aviation” . I
know that Mrs. C. gives these short shrift on the assumption that the diplomats
will talk for virtually forever before things are done, and then it only
remains to report on the final results. I think this sells diplomacy short, so
if you want a fuller account, just let me know!
In other news, the French are
looking at flying boats for their North African service, except perhaps in
areas that are arid? The bi-weekly service between Lisbon and Oporto will only
be allowed to carry three members of one family, and the AustralianNationalisation of Airlines Bill has passed. (There are also details of
airports in Philadelphia, Berlin and Geneva, and of exports to Argentina,
because it has politely declined to be too excitable.)
Correspondence
“What Does the Private Owner Want?”
Asks Barry Hilery. A nice schnitzel with a dry white, Mr. Hilery, and a Vienna torte with coffee afterwards. Well, that’s what I want right now, and while
admittedly I am not a private aircraft owner, I also don’t pretend to speak for
them! Especially at a page and a half’s length. J. Cohen (Fl. Lt.) writes to
ask a math question, complete with diagrams. It looks as though the paper is a
little short of letters this week. Perhaps the usual gaggle of letter-writers
are distracted by current events.
Time,
20 August 1940
Correspondence
Mrs. Skuce and Allison continue the
discussion of best and worst American presidents. The former President of Ecuador writes to explain that no Ecuadorian public official has ever taken a
bribe. There is a wide a range of disagreement with Sgt. Bundenthal’s
self-evident observation that German
girls are the prettiest in the world.
The paper admits to being surprised that
Clement Atlee is the Prime Minister of England. Being opposed to the sun rising
in the East ought not make one expect that it will rise in the west! A “WilliamF. Buckley, Jr., Lieutenant, Jr. U.S.A,” writes that while Catholics hate godless
Communism, they are all in for the alliance with Russia against Japan, and for
the prevention of future wars. Gordon Flint notes that if the 57mm recoilless
rifle can be fired rifle-style, and creates a backblast of flame four feet
wide and 13 ft long, Fort Benning’s real secret is its fireproof gunner. C. Y.
Slobicki writes that the Pan-American Highway has not been abandoned, butmerely passed on to the Public Works Administration, and it is hoped it will open in 1947.
Victory
“The Peace: The Bomb” The paper cannot come up with a coherent sentence about this. Instead, it uses many subtitles all in a row. If you will pardon some romanji, I will quote directly from the English a passage I cannot possibly translate. “The race had been won, the weapon
had been used by those on whom
civilization had the best hope to depend; but the demonstration of power
against living creatures instead of dead matter created a bottomless wound in
the living conscience of the race.” The paper goes on to summarise the long, nervous days while we waited
for the surrender to become official. It’s hard to capture in words already,
especially as I went down to Grant Avenue to join the celebrations there, and
the paper hasn’t the slightest interest in printing those pictures. Or of the awful riot over on Market Street.
International
Talks on charges and jurisprudence
for the war crime trials continue. American base requirements in the occupied
Pacific are being discussed. Stimson is rechecking the numbers to see if the
army can be cut, now. Almost everyone with 85 points or more will be out in the
next ten days or so, probably a half million men. The men still in transit
across America or waiting to ship in Europe will not go to the Pacific now, but the divisions awaiting embarkment in California are to go, as an army of occupation for Japan.
“To the Bitter End” Various Japanesedie-hards have not surrendered yet. A ship was torpedoed off Okinawa, and the
Russian invasion of Manchuria continues.
“My God!” Some accounts of
Hiroshima, and a suggestion that it was the mission commander who diverted the
second bomb to “second-choice” Nagasaki after the other target was reported
overcast.
“The Locusts” It is calculated that
Japan had 900,000 men in China; 600,000 Japanese and 300,000 puppet troops in
Manchuria, 150,000 in Tonkin and Thailand; “diseased remnants” in Burma; and a
half-million or so spread from Southeast Asia to the bypassed Pacific islands.
Somehow, they must be shipped home and “squeezed into the teeming” home
islands.
“Atomic Age” Etc, etc. The technical
facts are these: progress in explosives has been surprisingly slow. TNT is
barely twice as powerful as black powder. An atomic bomb is 12,000 times as
strong as the same weight of TNT. 123 planes could carry as much destructive
power as all the bombs dropped in WWII. Right now, only the US, Britain and
Canada possess the secret of this power. How long that will last is another
question, because “secrets are perishable.” It is thought that the Russians
advanced the time table of their attack in Siberia because they expected the
bomb to end the war before they could join, otherwise.
“Technology” It has long been known
that the “atomic” energy locked in atoms was vast, and from some atoms was
emitted as radioactivity. James Chadwick discovered in 1932 that the neutron
had no charge, and so could be shot at atoms.
A physicist is a man who can make a hundred pound suit look like a bad t-shirt by brain power alone. |
Enrico Fermi soon started to do
just that, and found that uranium split with a most satisfying ka-boom. In
1938, Otto Hahn found barium amongst the remains of a neutron-uranium bang.
Lise Meitner realised that it had to be a remnant of the uranium atom which had
been split, did the math, found that some of the mass of the original uranium atom was gone, concluded that there must be some excess energy due to what Einstein said about the speed of light and twins in star-ships, and was sent off to get coffee and cake for the men so that Neils Bohr and the Princeton lads could take the credit for discovering "fission." The trick was then to keep it going with a “chain
reaction.” Such chain reactions are possible with either a rare isotope of
uranium, or the soon-discovered artificial element, plutonium.
This still
required a “moderator” to slow down the neutrons, such as heavy water. U-235,
the rare “isotope” is very expensive and difficult to separate from regular
Uranium-238. Making plutonium in a “reactor” is easier, but the story quotes a scientist who was present when the first such reactor, in the midst of south-side Chicago, started to “cook.” He says that it was very lucky that there was enough moderator in the pile to stop the chain reaction. This is why the work was transferred
to Hanford, because the “reactors” would unleash clouds of long-lasting,
poisonously radioactive waste. Even the cooling water that bathed the reactors
became radioactive! This cooling water might even have been used in a power
plant, as it was enough to heat the Columbia River “appreciably.” The actual
bombs consist of small masses of either plutonium or U-235, which are brought
together by explosions of TNT to form a “critical mass” in which the “chain
reaction” can take place.
“Last Days”
Are described the nervous last days
of war in Japan. War Minister Anami’s call for resistance to the end is
noticed. So are the rumours that the Emperor might be deposed, and Crown Prince
Akihito called to continue the war. The papers called for peace, the Government
for total mobilisation. There was no food, and no electricity, and all were
waiting for the Emperor.
There is no room here for the midnight flight of a
southern politician from Nakasaki to Tokyo in an American plane, as there
should not and never will be. In China, the Communists of course ruined
everything by rushing to take positions from the surrendering Japanese. It is
like there is a civil war there, or something. A communist-inspired Korean
independence movement has suddenly materialised in Yenan. In England, the Daily Express’s Nat Gubbins said that
while the election had killed conservatism in Great Britain, the atom bomb had
done so in the rest of the world. A “suicide wave” is said to be sweeping
Germany. Various Spanish exiles have various reactions to the Allies’ snubbing
of Marshal Franco.
“Wives and Witnesses” Marshal Petain’s trial continues.
Canada at War notices that a grain elevator at Port Arthur has exploded, killing 20 and wounding 34; and that
there is another Radium City at Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories, where
Gilbert La Bine dug a radium mine and processing centre before the war, which
was taken over by the Government of Canada in January 1944 for secret reasons,
now explained.
Domestic
President Truman promised to feed
Europe next winter, and won a great many hands of poker on the trip to and from
Potsdam.
“Sudden Shift;” and “On and Off;”
End of war means the end of mobilisation, and the end of economic controls,
more or less, sooner or later.
No-one’s sure of the details, but the WPB now
promises 500,000 cars in 1945, up from 250,000, and canned goods are off the
ration list. The Navy has already cancelled 95 ships, including the 45,000t
battleship Illinois, the 27,000t
carriers Iwo Jima and Reprisal, 20 heavy or light cruisers.
Various munitions, shipyard, and aircraft plant workers do not know when, or
if, their jobs will end.
“Disaster In the Wheatlands” The worst railroad wreck of 1945 kills 34 aboard the Great Northern’s Empire Builder just outside Michigan
City, North Dakota. North Dakota is an American state. so is South Dakota, in what is obviously a deliberate attempt to confuse foreigners looking for Dakota.
Business
and Finance
“The Winner” America made vast
numbers of weapons and trucks and ammunition. That is how it won. Now it must
reconvert it all. Cars, refrigerators, dishwashers, tires, nylons, are all
eagerly awaited, while on the other hand, Alcoa has no idea what it will do
with all of its aluminum refining capacity.
“No Thanks!” U.S. Steel has refused
the Defence Plant Corporation’s terms for the Geneva, Utah plant, and instead
intends to expand its existing Columbia Steel Co., subsidiary of Pittsburg, California.
This narrows potential bidders for Geneva to the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company, and the Kaiser organisation, and Kaiser doesn’t want it.
“Phones for Jobs” Giant $65 billion
American Telephone and Telegraph Company has announced that it needs 70,000
additional employees to meet all its postwar plans for new phones, new
circuits, replacement phones, and high-capacity cable for transcontinental
services.
Science,
Medicine and Education
“Radar” America spent half again as
muich on radar as on the atom bomb, but the atom bomb has eclipsed the public
revelation of what all that money bought, even though radar is already a $2
billion industry.
Time says that this was going to be the cover, before the atom bomb. Poor radar. Almost famous. |
Radar is noted for helping battleships hit various targets,
including Bismarck, when it was only
outnumbered one to two, and so could sink Hood
with a single hit. Radar was “chiefly responsible for defeating the U-boat
and the buzz-bomb.” In peacetime, it is good for GCA and weather forecasting.
Various famous American radar scientists are mentioned, but in contrast to the
blizzard of names in the British press, Americans move on quickly to
institutions: the MIT Radiation Laboratory, Bell Telephone Laboratories, the
Naval Research Laboratory. American “progress in radar was paralleled by a team
of British physicists.” Germans also must have “paralleled” American work,
since their research began in 1935. The Japanese and French also appear to have
paralleled American work first. The paper is particularly impressed with the
potential of a British gadget called the magnetron,etc, etc. This is because
practical “microwave” production might have all kinds of uses. “They flow
through pipes like water, are reflected by human bodies, can be ‘modulated’ to
carry sounds and pictures.” But not with magnetrons! See, Cousin W.? I do listen! Some scientists now even dream of bouncing a radar
signal off the Moon.
GM is donating $4 million to the
fight against cancer. The “stratovision” concept of Glenn Martin aircraft
broadcasting television signals with Westinghouse equpkment gets another
airing.
“Sense or Nonsense?” The first rule
of clubs, schools and such which restrict Jewish admissions to quotas is to
deny that they do any such thing. Dartmouth’s President, Ernest Martin Hopkins,
made that mistake several times over the last few months, and now it is a
scandal. He explains in his own defence that Dartmouth is a private, selective
institution, and that it must have all sorts of quotas, and if it let all the
Jews in who qualify, it would be all Jews. Which seems like it might be a
problem for Dartmouth, and not the Jews!
Art,
Literature, Music, Movies, Press, Etc.
Terence Duren “frail, 40, ferocious
lampooner of womenhood” had a display at the University of Nebraska, with a competing show by Dale Nichols. Then the
two said rude things about each other, and all Nebraska was set to light.
(Nebraska is an American state, my sources tell me.) Karl Hofer had had a show
in Berlin, which makes me long to be back, just to see certain “gentlemen” and
look them in the eye until their gaze turns down.
Museum of Nebraska Art (Google cache), |
The Mutual Radio Network cannot be
embarrassed enough for breaking into Double
or Nothing to report the false Japanese surrender. Street and Smith has a
new magazine, Pic. Excellent news,
because the paper can reminscce about Deadeye Dick, Buffalo Bill, Frank
Merriwell, Oliver Optic, Horatio Alger, and other things it read as a boy. As
for boys now, It can now be revealed that censors tried to suppress a Superman story in which he was exposed
to the 3 million volt beam of an atom-smashing cyclotron.
Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Mcalister Ingersoll, editor of PM magazine, has
married Elaine Brown Keiffer, a Life staffer,
after she received her Reno divorce from Lieutenant Mortimer Howell Cobb. Dead
are Henry Taft, brother of the late President, and another man on my Air
Ministry list, the American rocket scientist, Goddard.
“Orders from Tokyo,” the movie about
planned and actual Japanese atrocities in Manila, gets another airing. “Out of
the Night” and “Ten Cents a Dance” are the best of the August movies, which are
not very good in America, because who goes into a cinema in August? We’re all
off to Napa, or the beach, or the mountains, or anywhere. This year,
apparently, we are taking an old Trollope novel with us. (Well, speak for
yourselves, as I am taking The Romance of the Three Kingdoms.)
Flight, 23 August 1945
Leaders
“Air Power’s Place in the War” The
paper promises an explanation from Major Robertson. . . In spite of the promise here, you will find nothing below about this article, and you should be very grateful for that.
“Refuelling in the Air” Before the
war, the paper used to talk about this, as it seemed to be coming on strong.
Perhaps it will come along strongly in civil aviation again, and the paper can
write about it some more. The paper urges the Ministry to have a close look.
Here
and There
Americans are bombastic and
frequently misstate the facts. The paper hopes that Air Marshal Colyer’s dinner
speech in Washington the other day to the effect that Germany was months ahead
of the Allies in jet development will have an effect. RAF and WAAF
demobilisation has been accelerated. De Havilland, in fact, makes the fastest aircraft in the world. Japanese balloon bombs are ridiculous, although several
did in fact land near the atom-bomb plant at Hanford, Washington, which I’ve
never heard mentioned in the press before. Now that Colonel Devereaux has
“relinquished his position as chairman and managing director of High Duty Alloys, Mr. Spence Sanders has now relinquished his position as deputy managing
director. . . “
Hanford, 1960 |
“Hawker Tempest II: Most Powerful
British Single-engined Fighter: Bristol Centaurus Engine” The paper is amused
that the Tempest II comes after the Tempest V, and there is as yet no sign of
the Tempest I.
Civil
Aviation
“Landing Rights Wanted: American
Interest in the Middle East: Future Traffic Volume” Half the excitement in
civil aviation negotiations appears to be over who gets landing rights, where.
Civil
Aviation News
Guernsey Airways congratulates
itself on carrying 800 passengers and 14 tons of freight over the last five
years. Is this a joke? The South Africa-England “Springbok” service will start this year. Dr. Lytle S. Adams’ “air seeding” scheme gets
more free publicity. US Air Transport Command has started a weekly Paris-Madrid
service.
“Payload and Long Range: How
Refuelling in the Air Can Help: Technical Problems Solved: Full Details of SirAlan Cobham’s Latest developments: Method Now Completely Safe and Reliable By
the Editor “ Fuck the censor, I hear the paper shout! What
the fuck am I going to run now? Oh,
wait. Here’s some ancient piffle about Cobham’s air petrol stations in the
files.
“Master Bomber’s Posthumous V.C.”
Squadron Leader Ian Willoughby Bazalgette (it’s pronounced “Fanshaw”) gets his
VC.
“Civil Sterling” Who knows? It could
happen.
“Airstrip on Coral Strand” The RAF
has built an airbase on the Cocos Islands in case the Indians tell the RAF that
here’s your hat, what’s your hurry after independence.
“Radar: Story of a War-Winning
Device: Some of the Men Who Developed It: British Scientists Solved Centimetric
Wave Problem: Germans Were Always One Jump Behind Allies” The paper now admits
that “gen boxes” and “magic eyes” were radar, and that all its readers knew
that all along. “For the benefit of anyone who might be hazy on the point,” it
then provides a one paragraph explanation of radar, of a very English sort,
since it takes the use of a cathode ray tube for granted. I shall have you
know, Mr. Englishman, that not every country is rich enough to put one of those
on every radar! It goes on to explain the “magnetron,” which reminds me of an
eye-glazing “instructing the docents” session at the Air Ministry in early 1944,
where I was supposed to be given all the details that my buxom bombshell spies
were to worm out of Allied aircrews while seductively cuddling and cooing at
their horrible Gestapo microphones in the eavesdropping cells. Although Cousin S got drunk enough to be entertaining at the end, and, as I've already mentioned, Cousin W. bent my ears afterwards about how the magnetron was a lucky gimmick, and that I
should really attend to details of
the Crossley proximity fuze –as though any of my dazed Rhodesian airmen would
have known about anything about that.
The paper wants to make it very
clear that the English gave radar equipment to Americans. “It is by agreement
with our Allies that the British Press should confine itself to giving
publicity to its own people, while the American Press deals likewise with the
equally valuable contributions of its own scientists.” Sir Stafford Cripps says
that only the fact that the English had been working on radar since 1933 (in "parallel" with the Americans, I suppose) kept
them a “jump” ahead. The first working radar came in 1935. On the day our
armies marched into Prague, a 24-hour radar watch on the whole coast began. By
the Blitz, a dizzying array of radar and radar-related equipment was in use,
and the names of English physicists come so thick and fast that it is no
surprise to hear that fully 90 of them were working at the main research
station. I even remember a few of the long list of names I was supposed to
listen for, although because they are “Oliphant” and “Bellringer,” I am even
more skeptical about those old Air Ministry briefings. Here are forty names of
scientists who might have been visiting the air garrisons! Take notes if one of
the prisoners mentions them! Well, of course we are going to remember Herr
Professor Elephant and the Hunchback of Westminster Abbey. “Professor John Smith”
might be more important!
On a more useful note, the paper
spends a good quarter of a page on centimetric radar, as generated by the
magnetron of great renown, though the paper lets us know that R. W. Sutton’s
receiving valve was equally important, something else Cousin W. explained to me
in arrogant tones. The magnetron, he said, was an obvious trick, if
elegantly done. The trick was to use it as part of a system. Well, and so the
English had. But to extend the trick to new applications was another matter,
and so I was upon the fuze, etc, to instead focus. I do not know how the gentlemen of the
Air Ministry took Cousin W.’s help, but I must say that his arrest was not a complete surprise to me, even if it did help
inspire me to flee the country. That and how well Fat Chow looks in a well-cut
Swedish suit. The paper also mentions OBOE and
REBECCA-EUREKA, but then falls
silent, with no mention of the 3cm wavelength gadgets that were the subject of
the last seminar I attended, on my way to the train station and my little nest
amongst the bales, Constantinople-bound. I suppose that to reveal such secrets would be
a step too far, lest a new war break out tomorrow.
“Mitsubishi S-03 ‘Tony’” This is the
Japanese fighter with the licensed Daimler-Benz engines, which the paper says
was the most common Japanese Army fighter by the end of the war, and a very
good one.
Correspondence
R. E. Gregory notices that air power
won the war, and that English airplanes are the best in all the world. E. N. B.
Bentley (A. F. R. Ae. S.) writes in to argue with J. B. Hurren, to the point
that beating up on the Japanese when they are down is no proof of the
invincibility of seaborne airpower. Douglas Deans writes that Peter Masefield
overestimates the advantages of air travel. W. G. Roberts points out that not
enough aviation-related is being done at the factories built alongside the big
new airfields. Making “rubber clothes” is silly, when more, bigger, faster
airplanes could be built. But how shall they stay dry in the rain?
Flight,
30 August 1945
Leaders
“the Future of Aircraft Manufacture”
Somewhat more civil aircraft, many more military transports, new naval air
types, a new flying boat.
“Occupation by Air” Some of the
occupying forces arrived in Japan by air. The thought is that this was worth
doing to secure the coastal defences ahead of the arrival of the fleet. The
other thought is that the paper is struggling to find some special “air”
relevance.
“Towards the All-Wing Ideal” Canadian
Car and Foundry has built a Burnelli “Flying Wing.” The paper finds this worth
mentioning. The paper also mentions a Westinghouse Electric/Glenn Martin scheme
to use aircraft “flying at great heights” as carriers of television
transmitters, to cover larger areas than is possible with a ground transmitter.
Petrol is cheap in America, it says. The included map says that we will get our
television from Sacramento. No!
Frank Smyth, New Guinea
correspondent of “Wings,” the RAAF official journal, “Tac. R. Beauforts: Royal
Australian Air Force Enthusiastic About Their Bristols in Aitape Campaign.” Mrs. C. summarised one of these articles by writing out the noises boys make when playing with toy planes, and I am tempted. For
those of us who do not have all the “gen,” the title is a bit mysterious, until
Mr. Smyth translates it. The idea here is that the Australian army had to do
something about the Japanese garrison of Wewak, which was in the difficult,
mountainous terrain of the Prinfce Alexander and Torricelli mountain ranges.
The Australians came up with the daring scheme of flying over and looking down!
For this they used “Australian-built Beaufort bombers.” The Beaufort, it turns
out, was ideal for looking down at things, a fact which Mr. Smyth finds remarkable. So remarkable that
he repeats it again and again! Several named individuals did especially good
jobs of looking down, such as Flight Lieutenant Max Tomlinson, “grazier of ‘Emu
Hill,’ Inverell, N.S.W. [which] has been in the Tomlinson family for just on a
century,” and Flight Sergeant D.B. Roberts, who does not pasture sheep.
“Nakajima Army Fighter ‘Tojo,” A less
common fighter than the Zeke or Tony, but it “needed to be treated with due
care in case it had a good pilot.”
Here
and There
A Gloster Meteor has been provided to
the RCAF so that it can say that it has a real jet. Some Hurricanes have been
sent to Ireland. People will be interested(!) to hear that, on disbanding, the
Motor Industry Fighter Fund still had £48 in its treasury, which it gave to the
RAF Benevolent Fund. Lord Mountbatten, who was in England when Japan
surrendered, took 31 hours to fly back to his headquarters in Kandy in his personal
York, flown by Sqdn Ldr J. F. Matthews, of Iver Heath, Bucks. (No word on grazing conditions on Iver Heath.) The Soviet Air Force cancelled its 20 August
Air Day show over Moscow on account of bad weather. RAF Transport Command has
flown 100 Dutch children to a holiday resort in Scotland for a nine-week’s
recuperation. So there are holiday resorts in Scotland! Wing Commander P. B. “Laddie” Lucas, sports writer and
international golfer, has married Mrs. Jill Doreen Addison. Miss Addison’s
sister, Thelma, is married to Group Captain Douglas Bader. Dowty
Equipment’s new employee manual is quite attractive. Canadair, in Montreal,
switched to building the C-54 just before the end of the war with Japan. Canada
is also selling 7000 aircraft engines, mostly training types, but including
Perseuses and Merllins, as war surplus.
“Admiral’s Expediter” The Admiral
(Air) has a very nice Airspeed Expediter. The rearmost port chair is the
Admiral’s favourite, and has a folding mahogany writing table. Although sound-insulated
with sepak, the paper is concerned that, because the cockpit is open to
the main cabin, should any windows be
open in it, the sound will carry into the cabin “without let or hindrance.” All
this opulence will naturally impress Continentals, says the Englishman.
“Expansion” The paper is very
impressed with a new Fairey machine tool head for truing up the bore of a tube.
Boring |
“Fate of Fokker Factory: How the
Germans Were Outwitted During the War: Original Works Ready to Resume in About
Three Months” Fokker only cooperated with the Germans a little, this time around.
“RAAF Air/Sea Rescue: How an
American Pilot was Picked Up from Under the Noses of the Japs by a Walrus of
the Royal Australian Air Force” It turns out that this should actually read “How
Two Native Boys in a Canoe Rescued An American Aviator and Brought Him to a
Walrus of the RAAF swinging at Ease by the River Bank”
“Is this What They Want:
Experimental American Design for the Owner-Pilot: Twin-Boom Pusher With
Tricycle Undercarriage” It doesn’t look like
a schnitzel and a nice white wine. The “Skycoupe” doesn’t even have hat room,
unlike the design that other fellow from Aviation
was hawking the other month. It will
have spot-welded skin, when it is actually built, though, and a flat-four
Frankling 4ACG-119, rated at 113hp at 3500rpm at sea level.
E. T. House, “Air-Atlantic: Recollections
of a Pioneer Flight Made Eight Years Ago: Duration 20 Hours, Range 2,854 Miles”
To think that eight years ago only this was; that our submariners were then two
years from challenging the might of the Royal Navy.
Caledonia, a Short Empire Flying Boat, was loaded with long range fuel tanks to carry 2,320 gallons of gas and 120 gallons of oil, compared with the usual 636 gallons gas, 58 gallons oil. The four engines were standard Pegasus Xs, giving 740bhp at takeoff using 87 octane gas. Maximum takeoff weight was increased from 40,600lb to 45,000, increasing wing loading from 27 to 30lb/sq ft,and power loading from 13.7 to 15.3 lb/bhp. “Since that time, under the stress of war conditions, the same type of aircraft has operated at considerably higher weights.” New navigational facilities included H/F and M/F radio stations on the ground, allowing astro-navigation to be combined with direction finding loops. The aircraft had, as loaded, an endurance of 20.1 hours, giving a range of 2854 statute miles at a reckoned true airspeed of 142mph at a cruising altitude of 6000ft,wich calculated mean gas consumption of 0.42lb per bhp per hour. This gave a six hour still-air flying reserve on the 1,960 mile Foynes-Botwood flight, allowing 45 minutes for taxying and idling, giving the maximum 20mph headwind to be overcome, and allowing the use of an alternative landing spot within three hours of Botwood if it weather prevented landing there. Westerly winds frequently reach 40 to 60 mph in the winter, when major depressions settle in south of Greenland and north of Iceland. Thus it is only from May to October that such flights are possible. The low altitude also reduces the risk of icing. In the event, Caledonia made the flight in 15.4 hours, yielding an airspeed of 124mph, hence a headwind of 15mph. On the return flight, a tail wind of 17mph gave a flying time of 12 hrs 33 min.
Subtext alert! It's about being torpedoed below. |
Caledonia, a Short Empire Flying Boat, was loaded with long range fuel tanks to carry 2,320 gallons of gas and 120 gallons of oil, compared with the usual 636 gallons gas, 58 gallons oil. The four engines were standard Pegasus Xs, giving 740bhp at takeoff using 87 octane gas. Maximum takeoff weight was increased from 40,600lb to 45,000, increasing wing loading from 27 to 30lb/sq ft,and power loading from 13.7 to 15.3 lb/bhp. “Since that time, under the stress of war conditions, the same type of aircraft has operated at considerably higher weights.” New navigational facilities included H/F and M/F radio stations on the ground, allowing astro-navigation to be combined with direction finding loops. The aircraft had, as loaded, an endurance of 20.1 hours, giving a range of 2854 statute miles at a reckoned true airspeed of 142mph at a cruising altitude of 6000ft,wich calculated mean gas consumption of 0.42lb per bhp per hour. This gave a six hour still-air flying reserve on the 1,960 mile Foynes-Botwood flight, allowing 45 minutes for taxying and idling, giving the maximum 20mph headwind to be overcome, and allowing the use of an alternative landing spot within three hours of Botwood if it weather prevented landing there. Westerly winds frequently reach 40 to 60 mph in the winter, when major depressions settle in south of Greenland and north of Iceland. Thus it is only from May to October that such flights are possible. The low altitude also reduces the risk of icing. In the event, Caledonia made the flight in 15.4 hours, yielding an airspeed of 124mph, hence a headwind of 15mph. On the return flight, a tail wind of 17mph gave a flying time of 12 hrs 33 min.
“ICAN: International Commission for
Air Navigation, Past and Future” ICAN: more jobs for diplomats, as long as they
know about planes!
“C.E.R.C.A.: Conclusions and
Recommendations: Value of Radar” The Commonwealth talks about civil aviation
are over, and we are now allowed to tell you about what they thought of radar.
They think it is nice.
Civil
Aviation News
There are not enough alphabetical
diplomacy-shops for civil aviation, so the one in Montreal is now dubbed the
P.I.C.A.O., which is short for something. I.C.A.N. had a meeting, T.C.A. is an airline, not a
congress, and is to have more services to various places in Canada. Russia
wants an air service connecting Moscow to America via Alaska. Pan-American and
BOAC are up to new services and a forced landing (no-one hurt), respectively. The
Canadian Burnelli is noticed, and so is a vocational training scheme to teach
members of the Aeronautical Engineering Association about Dowty landing gear.
“An Aircraft Position Indicator” Wing
Commander C. Hole is advertising a strip-map “indicator” driven by some kind of
clockwork. It will be attached to the bulkhead, and show interested passengers
the silhouette of an aircraft moving across the map at the calculated rate.
Wing Commander Hole needs a bigger pension, or perhaps for his brother-in-law
to get him some undemanding job in the depths of the office, where he can sit
amongst piles of papers and look important, while slowly drinking the day away.
Major F. A. de V. Robertson, V.D., “Aircraft
as Life-savers” Evacuating Wounded: Repatriating Prisoners of War” The Major
explains that aircraft can now be used to carry people from place to place.
Including wounded people, and prisoner of war people. This happened in old
times, in Iraq and India and such, and then actually in this war, for example,
in the Western Desert, sometimes with old Vickers Valentias. Then it happened
more in Normandy. Cases of airsickness were reported. Sometimes, there are
welcoming committees for returning prisoners of war. Sir Walter Scott said
something about women. Sometimes, WAAF nurses flew to Normandy, and came back
with dirty clothes. Some of the POWs from East Asia will be troopshipped home,
and this will lead to seasickness and unpleasantly sticky heat in the Red Sea,
which is bad. Hilariously, a returning prisoner of war says that even though
the weather is better in Austria, he is still glad to be back in England.
As a writer, Major Robertson really
does seem well suited to be Wing Commander Hole’s secretary.
Correspondence
B. Stokes writes in with another
correction of fact in the recent Hurren article. An anonymous correspondent
writes that air refuelling seems like a very uneconomical way to run an
airline, and asks for more details. The Editor predicts that Sir Alan Cobham
will be glad to oblige. Several writers provide to enlighten Fl. Lt. Cohen on velocity
of circular motion.
Time,
27 August 1945
Letters
W. G. Martin on the atom bomb: “Ye
fools and blind.” Walter G. Taylor and John L. Balderston, of Oak Ridge,
Tennessee, generally agree. Several writers are displeased with the German girl
who brought up the Negro question in connection with Germany and the Jews a few
issues back. Motes and beams, but which the mote, and which the beam? Tom Lennon
has an argument with the paper about whether or not the Venus de Milo is too wide
in the seat. Several writers have opinions about the paper’s style. The paper
chides American correspondents in Greece for being too pro-ELAM after one
writes to complain about its coverage. The paper points out that it was a
British investigatory mission that said so first. We are told of an exhausted
Japanese soldier, recovered from a raft, who was trying to use a map torn from
the 2 August number of Time to
navigate.
The publisher’s letter uses the atom
bomb to sell a History in the Making series
of reprints from the paper and its stablemates. Crass.
International
“A Job for an Emperor”
General MacArthur is to command the
occupation force in Japan, which is appropriate, because he is the most
emperor-like of American generals. Here is the many-paged cover story about
him. Many pages I do not have to summarise!
Another story below accounts for the
actual Emperor’s doings and whereabouts, and profiles the new government that
was in power for a good half an hour. Various Japanese generals and admirals have
committed ceremonial suicide. The paper cannot decide whether it finds
harakiri more barbarous than it finds the non-suicidal generals and admirals
shameless.
“Light on Asia” T. V. Soong and his
daughter photograph well, and his secret treaty with Moscow is surely
innocuous.
“Socialist Era” The first King’s
Speech of the new government did not feature Labour ranks in dungarees
listening to Comrade King exhort the working classes to expropriate the
bourgeoise.
The opposition leader than had an unusual job for a reply to the
speech, which was to explain the atomic bomb programme, expound on US
relations, talk about displaced persons, and cast dark shadows upon Professor
Laski.
“Dishonour but not Death” Marshal
Petain is convicted of being Marshal Petain, but will not be executed.
Meanwhile, French socialists have a meeting in Paris, where the food is awful.
“Delayed Fusion” Italy is having
trouble putting a government together. A reported 30 “liquidations” a night are
clearing Milan of Fascists.
“Wan Wan Sui” “China, Ten Thousand
Years” cry the ecstatic crowds of Chungking to the victorious Generalissimo.
Meanwhile, “Yenan crackles with defiance.” The paper suggests that Yenan is in
open rebellion. Has the paper checked this fact? Has it sought a second opinion
about whether a civil war might lead to open rebellion? Yenan is also accused of receiving the allegiance of the Japanese puppet troops.
Latin Americans are excitable.
Another German U-boat has appeared in Argentina, U-977. Anyone who thinks that
a typical Nazi refugee would make it to Argentina on one of our submarines,
unless every lifeboat and vest on the boat was already expended, does not know
our boys!
Domestic
“Days to Come” The war is over! Reconversion is the order of the day, etc. Actual news: meat will be off the ration list in the next few weeks due to the cancellation of army setasides. Butter won’t be off for a few months, sugar not before 1947. With 7 million fewer cars on the road than on 7 December 1941, the 600,000 expected by April 1946 are barely a start. Threee million in the next year is more like it. Tires will be unrationed in the next four months. Gasoline is off the rations. 400,000 new homes are expected over the next year, at a possible $1 billion/year rate next summer. Shoe rations will probably end in October, and alarm clocks will appear that month. 2.6 million applications for new phones will be filled by April of next year. No-one knows when Pullman restrictions will be eased.
I'd say something about "disruption" here and multiple careers and the gig economy, but it would just be depressing. |
“Administration” The latest new
names in the Administration are Dean Acheson and Ben Cohen. Mrs. C.’s beloved
governor has appointed William Fife Knowland to replace Hiram Johnson. The
Democrats will run Manchester Brody against him next year. His Dad got him the
job; let’s see if he can keep it.
“Top Brass Plans” Now that the war
is over, George Marshall, already past the retirement age, will go soon.
General Arnold, younger but prematurely aged by the strain of the war, will
also soon retire. Eisenhower will likely succeed Marshall, Spaatz or Eaker or
an even younger man will follow Arnold. The Navy is where the real power
struggle will break out. Nimitz wants COMINCH, with Spruance as another
candidate. Navy “radicals” want to break off the deadwood and install Arthur Radford, 175 on the Navy List. At a lower level, the question of who gets sent
to the Pacific is still vexing the Army even now that an occupation for Japan
is being assembled, and not an invading army. POW liberation is going ahead
quickly, with paratroopers being dropped into some camps to speed the process.
“Men Against the Sea” Indianopolis was torpedoed and sunk far
too long ago, and the survivors only finally found this Tuesday. 880 of 1196
crew were lost.
Business
""to War and Back with Emil Koch" Emil Koch, a 39-year old mechanic at General Electric, has gone right on working through the reconversion, waling directly from the assembly line where he built giant searchlights to one where he is building washers. This is because he is a key man, who worked 84 hours for a period after Pearl Harbour, and 48 hours since, at a dollar an hour, plus time-and-a-half. There is talk that the first washers will be converted to polio packs. As though I needed to be reminded again about polio. . .
Science,
Medicine, Education
“Ratproof Cotton” The new, stronger
cotton is “acetylated.” In other pest news, DDT is everywhere,. (There was an article a few weeks ago about a chemist who made it at home.)
"Transplanted Teeth" Doctors Harry H. Shapiro of Columbia and Bernice L. Maclean of Hunter College report successfully transplanting teeth buds from kittens to other kittens and full-grown cats. In the future, it may be possible to transplant tooth buds from children whose mouths are crowded with teeth to gap-teethed adults.
"Neglected Heroes" The paper reports that a false limb laboratory has just been established in Detroit.. The point is that it is scandalous that this did not happen earlier.
"Optical Illusion" The OPA is under fire after entries in its price control lists are noticed, such as "All baseball equipment" being removed from price controls, except balls, mitts, gloves, bats, apparel and shoes.
"All or Else" The American Property Administration has begun large lot sales of surplus property in Europe, with Belgium picking up 250 locomotives and cars.
"Spender Out" Almost unnoticed in the flood of news last week
is the news that Alvin Harvey Hansen, "Harvard's New Dealish, free-wheeling Lucius N. Littauer professor of political economy, will no longer act as consultant to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. His left-wing view that public spending is needed to balance demand during business recessions, and there is no need to worry about the staggering size of the national debt will no longer be heard, for Marriner Eccles is scared stiff of inflation, does not think it can be avoided, feels that it must be minimised, and has sold the Truman Administration. Or, Eccles in, Hansen out, debt out, balanced budget in. I just hope that the President knows what he is doing.
"More Jobs for More Workers"
The Committee for Economic Development's marketing committee reported this week that there would be work for 53.5 million people in "194Q," apparently 1947.
From the present labor force of 51.3 million, younger workers will go back to school, some women to housework, and the overaged to retirement.Population increase, which normally adds 500,000 people a year, is cancelled for one year by war casualties. Once these adjustments were made, the Committee gets 60 million—5.9 million more than in 1939 when 8.9 million were unemployed.
By surveying business, the Committee matched these to $80 billion of goods produced in 1947 (based on 1939 prices), an increase of 42% over 1939's $56.8 billion.Expected increases are automobiles, up 75.8%, transportation equipment (except automobiles), up 74.3%; tobacco products, up 69.4%; chemicals, up 58.2%; rubber products, UP 47.3%; food products, up 33.6%.
Allowing for a 6% increase in man-hour productive efficiency since 1939, the manpower needed to produce 1947's manufactured goods will be 13.4 million—a 34% increase over the ten million on manufacturers' payrolls in 1939. By applying and revising 1939's ratio of industrial workers to workers in all other categories —i.e., agriculture, distribution, and service industries—they reached the figure of 53.5 million jobs, leaving 6.5 million people with no jobs. With a deduction of 3.5 million for the armed services, this leaves 3 million for a "floating labour force" of the briefly unemployed.
Press,
Art, Literature, Radio, Cinema, People, Etc
In spite of peace, it is still
August, so there is no new radio and practically no new movies. The Office of
the Censor has been shut down, and Collier’s
is embarrassed to have a cover story about how bloody the invasion of Japan
is going to be. Homer Bigart is back in America. Neew England has a new magazine, and Jane might run in American papers if she will only wear clothes.
(Her appeal can then be the high-quality humour.
The Metropolitan reports that it has discovered a "16th Century fraud" with infrared photography detecting a crossed-out signature on a claimed Mantega painting that turns out to have been by Carpaccio. It's a little late for redress, but it is an infrared photograph, so it qualifies as technology news.
"Weep No More" A biography of Stephen Foster, Chornicles of Stephen Foster's Family by his niece, Evelyn Foster Mornewreck, corrects previous views of the great American song writer. It turns out that he was well-bred, well-paid, respectable, a family man, and an anti-abolitionist Democrat.
Uncle Harry is reviewed this week. a thriller produced by Joan Harrison, who was formerly Alfred Hitchcock's secretary. (No doubt just like I was a "secretary" at the Foreign Ministry. Grr!). It sounds more distressing than it is --the ending apart. Seriously, it was all a dream! The paper is pleased that it gives Geraldine Fitzgerald something to do. Over 21 is a "moderately successful comedy" in which the paper detects some kind of lampoon of Ralph Ingersoll.
This week's featured book reviews are something by Mencken that you can take or leave as you take Mr. Mencken, a poetry collection from Malcolm Cowley and a history of the "first Americans in North Africa," something that apparently happened about 1800 or so. Ancient memories. . .
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