AMERICAN WINGS OVER BRITAIN

Northern Advocate, 23 July 1938, Page 12

AMERICAN WINGS OVER BRITAIN

By ROBERT WAITHMAN in the London “News Chronicle’’

IN view of the large order for American war planes given by the British Air Ministry, and the great programme of plane construction to be carried out by Lord Nuffield, the following article written at Now York by Robert Waithman for the London “News Chronicle” is very interesting: “This British aeroplane buying mission is big news for Herr Hitior,” says Mr Waithman, “because on the day when Commodore Weir and his men landed, a very worried Stale Department issued to the Washington correspondents a stern statement to the effect that there was no agreement about aeroplanes between the United States and British Governments, and that the British Government, dealing privately with American manufacturers, would get precisely the same treatment as any other foreign aeroplane customer —neither better treatment ncr worse. This statement the ‘New York Times’ printed, a trifle ponderously. $ * * * “Hell begins to pop in Congress at the slightest suggestion that there is any sort of agreement between Britain and the United Slates. The ‘isolationists’ watch with the eyes of eagles for the faintest move in the direction of a European commitment. “This aeroplane mission is another matter. “If it can find what it wants, and arrange for delivery; and if simultaneously the little-mentioned French overtures (which at the moment of . writing have .yet to crystallise into definite orders) should be successfully completed, then there' will be a new lighthouse on the horizon. “The United States will be committed to nothing; the ‘isolation bloc’ will have no cause for worry. But a fresh serum wall have been injected into the tired arm of democratic Euro: ;. t : * • * “The word serum has a certain ccngruity. A serum is a dose of the poison with which the patient is inflicted, administered with the idea of giving him immunity. “Now, poison is a near-enough description for the four-engined Boeings, which pack five machine-gun emplacements, carry 40001 b of bombs and move at 250 miles an hour; or for Douglas’s Northropp attack planes whose technique is to dive almost silently on infantry so that (1) the pilot can fire 2000 rounds a minute from four forward guns, (2) the object of the attack can be bombed as

the plane passes over, ana (3) what remains can be wiped up with an observer’s machine-gun firing over the tail; or the Curtiss-Wright Hawk 75, which can climb to and operate at 31,400 feet and cruise at 200 miles an hour for 1200 miles; or for the incredible Lockheed plane with the super-charged cabin which in tests last year flew through the sub-strato-sphere at 350 miles an hour. “ ‘The United States have one of the biggest and possibly the most efficiently armed air services in the world,’ says the new Jane’s ‘All the World’s Aircraft.’ Thi’s is one way of saying that the United States manufacturers are on top of their job, and that in the huge-scale production of deadly warplanes they have reached a peak which most Americans themselves do not fully appreciate. “The story goes back to the middle of 1917 when, starting from a scratch array of plants employing 5000 men, the American aeroplane manufacturers began to organise themselves into an industry whose job would be to

supply military aeroplanes in a war due (as Washington then believed) to last for the next five years. “In spite of every handicap that could be put in their way by patentees, nosey-parkers, scandal-mongers, reformers, investigators and red-tape specialists, they turned out 13,894 planes and 41,953 engines in twentyone months. When the Armistice was signed they were employing 175,000 ,men and women; they were organised to produce 2i,000 planes a year; and they were getting better all the time. “If the war had lasted they would have darkened the skies of Europe with their aeroplanes. And that was twenty years ago. “Now, in peace time, they have plants which have £30,000,000 worth ■of orders on hand and can fulfil them without working much more than 50 4 per cent, of capacity. By extending.* their plants, increasing their payrolls’and adding extra shifts, the manufacturers could again blacken the skies with aeroplanes. They could do it almost at once. "

“ ‘No commitments!’ the politicians in Washington firmly say; and you can see their point. But you cannot help seeing also, unless you are blind, that while the United States does not want to send any more of its men to fight in Europe, there is a powerful and single-minded sympathy on the side of the democracies. « * * * “Selling aeroplanes is a moneymaking game, and one country’s money is as good as another’s. But the United States manufacturers will not sell aeroplanes in great numbers to any country which asks: the American people wouldn’t have it, even if the manufacturers wanted to do it. “There are countries, with Britain and France at the head of the list, who will be welcomed as star customers. And at this moment, more than at any time since the war, the coun- 1 try which takes the role of star customer in the American aeroplane market is going to have an international audience.”