AMERICANS PLAN AIR SUPREMACY

Southland Times, Issue 23675, 25 November 1938, Page 5

AMERICANS PLAN AIR SUPREMACY

Vast Programme Of

Construction

FIRST-LINE STRENGTH OF 12,000 AIRCRAFT

(United Press Assn.— Telegraph Copyright) (Received November 24, 6.30 p.m.)

NEW YORK, November 23. The Washington correspondent of the United Press says officials of virtually every major aeroplane manufacturing company in the United States have begun drafting a private report for the President (Mr Franklin D. Roosevelt) on a vast programme of construction designed to provide the American fighting forces with 12,000 first-line pursuit and bombing aeroplanes in from three to The C lhiited.' States has 3500 first-line aeroplanes at present. .The cost at building the remainder is estimated at 650,000,000 dollars. New air ports and other necessary facilities and personnel will swell the ultimate cost to 1,500,000,000 dollars. The Assistant-Secretary of War (Mr R. W. Johnson) said that the War Department was also proceeding, apace with an educational and experimental programme to encourage about 24b plants, which were now not equipped for that purpose, to .manufacture a large number of munitions items which the country would vitally need in the event of an emergency. It 7 is believed that the Government will probably make loans to enable factories to increase their production not only of aircraft but of other essential munitions. TT ~ , Mr Johnson insisted that the United States should build up an air force which would be equal to or surpass any other in the world, but for purely defensive purposes.”