AMERICA TO DEVELOP CARGO PLANES

Southland Times, Issue 24758, 1 June 1942, Page 5

AMERICA TO DEVELOP CARGO PLANES

(Rec. 10.30 p.m.) NEW YORK, May 30. ; The Washington correspondent of The i New York Herald-Tribune says that : the chairman of the War Production Board, Mr Donald Nelson, is establish- , ing an air cargo committee to speed the ; development of giant freight-carrying aircraft which can be used to rush critical material— including everything from ammunition to unassembled tanks and fighter planes—to vital points. Mr Harold Talbot, now directing the board’s aircraft production, will head the committee, which will be composed of outstanding advocates of air transport of many nations. The task assigned to them is regarded as tremendously important because of the potential value of the cargo plane as a supply link between the United States and the fronts against Germany and Japan. However, the organization of the committee does not imply a slackening ot the vast programme for building merchantmen; rather it will be created with twin goals—augmenting the work of the merchant fleet and offsetting the losses of merchantmen created by submarines. , The Navy Department announced, the sinking of a medium-sized American merchantman in the Gulf of Mexico with the loss of 22 lives, the torpedoing of a medium-sized American freighter in the North Atlantic with the loss of two lives, and the sinking of a British cargo vessel on the Atlantic coast with nine dead. ■