TOUR WAR ZONES

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 205, 30 August 1941, Page 8

TOUR WAR ZONES

U.S. AIR OFFICERS

Accelerate Arms Output

For Allies

United Press Association.—Copyright

Rec. 2 p.m. WASHINGTON, Aug. 29.

The War Department has announced that a group of army and air force officers, headed by MajorGeneral George Brett, Chief of the Air Corps, will tour the African, Near East, Mediterranean and Atlantic war fronts, in order to study British needs for American aviation equipment. In particular, they would study the maintenance and supply of aircraft after it had reached the war zones.

Mr. W. M. Knudsen, Director of the Office of Production Management, said the new Supply Priorities and Allocations Board, which had already been aptly termed the Ministry of Supply, of which Mr. Henry A. Wallace, vice-president, was chairman, and Mr. Donald Nelson was in a key position as director, holds its first meeting on Tuesday next. I-Ie said he believed the new agency would greatly accelerate arms production. Oil Barges Needed Admiral Land, chairman of the U.S. Maritime Commission, told the Senate Committee that he preferred the construction of 100 oil-carrying barges as the most speedy and least expensive solution of the oil shortage on the eastern seaboard. They could be constructed at 20 a month and consume only 100,000 tons of steel, whereas a pipeline would take 750,000 tons. He did not know where they were going to get that quantity from.

The New York Post's Washington correspondent says he learned to-day that President Roosevelt decided a week ago that he would not extend any sort of public recognition to General de Gaulle, leader of the Free French forces. Many officials felt that the moment had come to give recognition, but President Roosevelt decided against it, thus accepting Admiral Leahy, U.S. Ambassador to Vichy's view that such recognition wold alienate Vichy and the French in Africa. Therefore observers thought the denial by the Secretary of State, Mr. Cordell Hull, of the offer of bases, said to have been made by General de Gaulle, was a technical sophistry.

Tax Bill Approved The Senate Finance Committee has approved a tax bill estimated to yield 3,673,000,000 dollars. Senator George, of the Foreign Relations Committee, said that in a full year the yield would be 4,000,000,000 dollars.

The Consolidated Aircraft Company at San Diego, which manufactures British Liberator planes, is hiring an additional 1000 men in order to cope with British, Australian and Dutch East Indies' plane orders worth £23,500,000 sterling.

The Civil Aeronautics Board to-day granted Pan-American Airways permission to set up two new subsidiaries, Pan-American Airways Africa, Limited; and Pan-American Air Ferries, Incorporated, which will operate Pan-American's new commercial air service to Africa, and ferry bombers to Britain.