PREPARATIONS IN AMERICA

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23349, 7 June 1941, Page 9

PREPARATIONS IN AMERICA

PROVISION FOR 40,000 ARMY AIRCRAFT DELIVERING MACHINES JO BRITAIN i LONDON, June 5. Mr Roosevelt, in a message to.Congress to-day, said that the state of emergency recently declared in the United States might remain in operation for four years. Congress was asked to give approval to a bill for the expenditure of £66,000,000 on the St. Lawrence seaway and power project. Mr Roosevelt said that this would show America’s enemies that she intended to outstrip her opponents in the production race. In Washington to-day an Army Supply Bill entailing the provision of £2,500,000,000 was placed by the Appropriations Committee 'before the House of Representatives. This brings the total cost of America’s defence programme so far up to £10,000,000,000. It includes the provision of 40,000 aeroplanes for the United States Army Air Corps. The United States Under-Secretary for War (Mr Robert Patterson) said that in the army there was a feeling that all these aeroplanes would be needed by America if she was called on to use her defence forces. The Ist Division of the United States Army, which would be the first to move in the event of the country engaging in hostilities, is now virtually at war strength in a camp near Massachusetts. The Army Chief .of Staff (General George Marshall), said that the Ist Division would have first call on any new equipment that might become available. The Ist Division captured the first German prisoners taken by the United States Army m the Great War. The United States Army Air Corps is creating a special flight ferry command to deliver war aeroplanes from American factories to Canada and other Western Hemisphere points, thus relieving commercial pilots for the job of flying bombers across the Atlantic to Britain. A scheme for the cutting-down ,of the consumption of sheet metal in motor industries has been introduced by experts in America. Its main objective is to release more plate steel for the construction of ships and rolling stock. The United States Maritime Commission has invoked the 1916 Shipping Act giving the commission virtually complete control of the American merchant shipbuilding industry. Atlantic and Gulf ship operators have agreed to contribute 50 per cent, of their tonnage to emergency shipping operations involving 35 ships. _ . . General G. H. Brett, Assistant Chief of the United States Army Air Corps, recommended the House of Representatives Roads Committee to adopt a 20,000,000 dollars programme for wiaening cross-roads to provide 400 satellite aerodromes for mass movements of military aircraft. The widened highways would provide runways 3000 feet long on which aeroplanes could land from four different directions. A Los Angeles message says that two major aircraft companies have pooled their production facilities to manufacture the new British Vengeance type of dive-bomber, outclassing all existing types. Danes Give New Flag.—ln the roofles, windowless shell of St. Clement Danes, 200 Danes held their annual Constitution Day service and gave the church "a flag to replace the one which had hung in the church for more than 100 years.—London. June 5. Soviet Expels Journalist.—Tass, the official Soviet news agancy, states that Mr John Scott, the Moscow correspondent of the “News Chronicle.’ has been ordered to leave Russia. The reason given is that he was the author of slanderous articles about Russia in the "News Chronicle.”—London. June 5. ,