Washington (UP) –
American civilians in Egypt are being advised by the State Department to evacuate as rapidly as possible.
The advice was conveyed through American consular officials to 358 Americans in Egypt and 42 in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan.
The action was in keeping with the State Department’s policy of warning Americans whenever it appears they might be caught in war zones.
Events in Libya reportedly influenced the action.
Detroit employees told to return or forfeit their jobs
By the United Press
Forceful action by Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox today accomplished settlement of a labor dispute at a Detroit naval arsenal, and an ultimatum by Army ordnance officers virtually assured settlement of another work stoppage affecting war production at Michigan City, Ind.
Elsewhere, the nation’s armament production was hampered by only a few minor walkouts, many of them unauthorized.
At Detroit, production was resumed at the Hudson Naval Arsenal. Mr. Knox had warned participants in the unauthorized strike that they would be discharged and barred from future war production employment if the dispute were not settled promptly.
Denounced by union
The stoppage, which made 4,500 employees idle yesterday, resulted from the promotion of eight Negro workers. R. J. Thomas, president of the CIO United Auto Workers, denounced the strike as a “flagrant violation” of the UAW’s constitution, and returned by plane from Washington to Detroit to aid in the settlement.
At Michigan City, settlement of a strike that disrupted the production of 1,500 freight cars for the Army awaited only ratification by the union membership. Officials of the Pullman-Standard Car Co. and a bargaining committee of the AFL Brotherhood of Railway Carmen had already approved the agreement negotiated by Federal Conciliator Robert N. Pilkington.
Contract extended
The preliminary settlement was reached after Army officers had threatened to transfer the production to another plant if work was not resumed by Monday. The agreement would extend a bargaining contract which expired April 16 for 60 days while the War Labor Board negotiates the demand for 1,000 strikers for wage increases and improved working conditions.
About 225 open hearth workers remained on strike for the second day at the Lukens Steel Co. at Coatesville, Pa. CIO officials said the walkout, precipitated by demands for a 20% raise in pay, was unauthorized.
Company spokesman said the stoppage resulted in the “irreplaceable loss” of 1,400 tons of steel plates for tanks and ships, and added that the plant which employs 5,000 workers on war contracts, would be forced to close within a week if the stoppage continued.
New contract sought
Federal conciliators were scheduled to intervene after the company served notice on the CIO of its intention to scrap the existing contract and negotiate a new pact on a plant-wide basis. Labor leaders viewed the unprecedented management request as the first step in a movement to place unions themselves in a position of policing their ranks against outlaw strikers and work stoppages.
At Fall River, Mass, 128 loom changers and fixers ended an unauthorized strike which had hampered production at the Arkwright textile mill.
House unanimously backs huge expansion of carrier fleet
Washington (UP) –
Senator Ralph O. Brewster (R-ME), asserting that aircraft carriers have become “the key to naval supremacy,” today predicted the Senate would quickly pass the $8,550,000 naval expansion bill which includes authorization for 500,000 tons of new carriers.
The bill carries no authorization for new battleships which, Mr. Brewster and Chairman Carl Vinson (D-GA) of the House Naval Affairs Committee agree, have been replaced by carriers as the “backbone” of the fleet.
Mr. Brewster said:
The lesson taught the nation by Midway and Coral Sea prove conclusively that aircraft carriers are the key to naval supremacy. The effectiveness of planes launched from the decks of carriers is second only to that of land-based planes.
Bill passed by House
The giant naval expansion bill – the largest ever proposed – was passed unanimously by the House yesterday after Mr. Vinson revealed that the Navy is converting many merchant ships into aircraft carriers:
…as fast as humanly possible.
He said:
If you knew the number of carriers that have been built or converted, you would readily conclude that the Navy Department’s plans call for complete domination in the Atlantic and Pacific.
Senator Allen J. Ellender (D-LA) said the Senate Naval Affairs Committee would open hearings on the bill Monday morning:
…and I don’t think it will take us long to get it out of the committee and into the Senate.
Fleet size doubled
The bill, virtually doubling the strength of the existing fleet, authorizes 500,000 tons of new aircraft carriers, 500,000 tons of cruisers and 900,000 tons of destroyers and destroyer escorts. The total combatant vessels authorized are expected to exceed 400, plus 1,000 small vessels for patrol and anti-submarine work.
Mr. Vinson said that although the carrier has replaced the battleship as the “backbone” of the fleet, he warned against relegating the battleship to a permanently inferior status.
Magnuson enthusiastic
It is conceivable, he explained, that in an engagement in which all carriers may be destroyed, the great monsters of the fleet may yet play dominant and decisive roles.
However, temporary recognition of the carrier over the battleship won enthusiastic endorsement from Rep. Warren G. Magnuson (D-WA), a Navy lieutenant commander just returned from active duty in the Pacific.
He said:
Thank God, we have deferred building any more battleships for the time being.
Seversky believes construction of aircraft vessels means waste of essential materials and labor; we need foresight, he asserts
By Major Alexander P. de Seversky, United Press aviation analyst
The extreme vulnerability of aircraft carriers has been demonstrated impressively in recent weeks.
Both Japan and the United Nations have learned again, in action, that to bring “floating bases” within the striking radius of airpower based on land is to invite total destruction of the bases and their aircraft alike.
Luckily, this time, at Midway, Japan paid the bigger price, in sunk and crippled carriers.
What has been the first official reaction of our military leadership to the events that have so clearly discredited the carrier and carrier-based planes as strategic weapons?
The reaction has been to launch a program for the construction of half a million tons of aircraft carriers!
It is an ironical situation.
But unfortunately, the implications are not comic, but tragic.
Tragedy seen
The American people, including their spokesmen in Congress, ought to look more closely at this aircraft carrier business. They should do so especially for the light it throws on the character of military thinking which appears to still predominate on our side.
Since the days of Gen. Billy Mitchell, aviation specialists, aware of the potentialities of their weapons, have been warning Congress and our military leaders that battleships were becoming obsolete. We tried to show how the emergence of modern aviation must strip the battleship of most of its old functions and that, in consequence, it would play only a minor role, if any, in modern war.
Ship scrapping forecast
But our military leadership proceeded to put billions of dollars into huge naval construction, including an array of big battleships, most of which are still unfinished. In June 1941, I wrote that our projected two-ocean Navy would be completed:
…just in time to have all of its battleships scrapped.
That truth is now apparent.
From the beginning of the Second World War, we Americans had the advantage of front-row seats from which we could see modern war-making. We should have noted that big battleships were conspicuous in the war by their absence. They figured in a few engagements which made headlines but had no real strategic importance.
There was also the episode of the Nazi superdreadnought Bismarck, but that battleship was eliminated by airpower notwithstanding the fact that the coup de grâce was delivered by surface ships. Mostly, battleships have been in hiding, or have been sunk by airpower when they ventured forth, as were the Repulse and the Prince of Wales.
Permanent ‘deferment’ likely
Only now, toward the end of the third year of the war, have our big-battleship crowd begun to see the light. They are willing to “defer” the building of more of these $100-million gadgets. This writer is convinced that the “deferment” will be permanent.
In time of war, “better late than never” can be a source of danger. What we should note in this situation is that airmen were right and the orthodox admirals were wrong. The years that it took the admirals to catch up with the new facts have meant defeat after defeat and the diversion of valuable materials and labor to useless construction which should have been put into airpower.
Time lag in evidence
The same time lag is now in evidence in relation to aircraft carriers. Let us look at the chronology:
At the same time that far-sighted airmen argued against battleships, they pleaded for carriers. At that time, the “floating base” had a definite function to perform. Since land-based airpower still had a narrow radius of operation, the vast expanses of the oceans were not covered by aviation.
Fleets which carried a portable umbrella of ship-based aircraft were obviously at an advantage against fleets without such an auxiliary.
These pleas were ignored, with the result that the United States entered the war against Japan with only about half the carrier strength of the enemy.
Carrier area limited
In the intervening years, the usefulness of ship-based aviation has been swiftly whittled down. As the operating range of shore-based aircraft expanded, the area where the carrier planes had a reason for existence was correspondingly limited.
Today, there are still important sea spaces where the carrier is essential. Having failed to develop the full possibilities of long-range aviation, we must transport a great volume of supplies and manpower by surface craft, and ship-based planes offer a necessary protection.
Had the warnings of airmen been heeded, we would have possessed substantial carrier strength today, in 1942, when we can still see it.
The very people who opposed such proposals when they were still good have now begun to talk about carriers as the backbone of our naval forces – at a time when this type of airpower is ceasing to be valuable.
Long-range land-based aviation is advancing with such rapid strides that the remaining margin of usefulness for the carrier is certain to be wiped out soon.
It makes sense to convert unfinished cruisers into carriers. But carrier construction now undertaken from scratch will be completed just in time to be scrapped. Big bombers and torpedo planes with thousands of miles of operating range can be built faster than the carriers earmarked for annihilation by land-based airpower. Such airpower is the only force that can adequately protect our Navy.
Faster craft needed
There is good sense in building the smaller and faster surface craft and submarine and anti-submarine vessels, but so far as the new carrier program is concerned, the writer sincerely believes that we would be better off if we made a neat bundle of the billion dollars and sent it to the bottom of the ocean.
By that procedure, we would at least have essential materials, labor, and lives which otherwise may be uselessly exposed to overhead slaughter when the projected carriers are finished.
The most important fact about war making is timing. Undertakings which might have made sense two or three years ago may be nonsense now. What we need is foresight. Instead, we are still “catching up” with events.
Washington (UP) –
Clark Gable, motion picture star, has taken a physical examination for a commission in the Army Air Forces.
It was understood that he also conferred with Lt. Gen. H. H. Arnold, Chief of the Air Force, at that time.
The result of his physical examination will not be known until next week, it was said, and no decision has yet been made as to what rank he would receive in the event he is commissioned. Gable is 41 years old and would be eligible to become a major on the basis of his age alone.
Since the death of his actress-wife, Carole Lombard, Gable has told several friends that he would probably seek to join the Army.
London –
Gene Raymond, Hollywood actor and husband of Jeanette McDonald, arrived in London today to take up duties as a first lieutenant of the United States Air Force Command.
Norris fears financial disaster; Taft flays it as new pension
By the United Press
Washington –
The Senate last night postponed until Monday final action on legislation to establish a system of war insurance benefits for civilians after opponents denounced it as:
…unjustified, extremely dangerous, and a new type of pension.
Senator George W. Norris (I-NE) feared adoption of the program would invite “financial disaster.” He said that while he favored paying some benefits to everyone injured in the war, he believed the proposal was:
…treading on dangerous ground.
Senator Robert A. Taft (R-OH) denounced it as “too wide in scope” and tantamount to:
…a new type of pension.
Whip agrees to delay
Democratic Whip Lister Hill of Alabama, acting leader, moved to delay consideration and Senator Claude Pepper (D-FL), its author, agreed.
The bill would provide cash benefits ranging up to $85-a-month and medical assistance to any person injured in bombing raids or similar action incident to the war. Similar cash benefits would be paid to dependents of civilians killed or captured by the enemy.
Cash benefits would be furnished for workers engaged in certain types of defense projects outside the United States, but would be payable only to persons living in the United States.
A civilian could not apply for benefits unless suffering at least a one-third total disability. The amount to be paid would be determined by the extent of injury, need and the earning at the time of injury.
Taft plan voted down
Senator Taft offered an amendment to eliminate compensation for civilian defense workers injured in the performance of regular duties, arguing that:
The claims for compensation will be 100 times as many as injuries resulting from direct enemy action.
He was voted down 54–26.
Debate followed Senate approval of a resolution to correct a Senate clerk’s oversight in omitting the effective date – June 1 – in recently enacted legislation to provide dependency benefits for members of the armed forces.
Four draft groups urged
Senator Taft took occasion to urge selective service officials to use their authority under the military dependency bill to divide family men into four draft classifications to prevent:
…great hardship to many men and many families.
He suggested:
Those whose dependents are parents, sisters or brothers, an estimated 1,200,000 men, to be called first.
Married men without children, an estimated 2,760,000.
Men with dependent children who were under 30 years of age last Jun. 1, a group estimated to number 2,054,000.
Married men with dependent children who were over 30 at start of the year – an estimated 11,479,000 in all.
Sailed from New Orleans into oblivion 4 months ago – wives of crew refuse to give up hope
By Ted H. Maloy, United Press staff writer
New Orleans –
The disappearance of the little freighter Miraflores four months ago today may equal the 24-year-old mystery of the USS Cyclops which vanished in March of 1918.
Both were last seen in the water off the West Indies.
The Navy collier Cyclops left Barbados in the West Indies March 4, 1918, with 309 aboard. The big ship of 19,400 tons displacement and her crew were never seen or heard from again.
The 2,158-ton Miraflores of Standard Fruit and Steamship Co. sailed from New Orleans for Haiti last Feb. 6 with a crew of 34. Captain Robert Thompson of New Orleans expected to return Feb. 19 from the “routine” trip.
Sinkings hadn’t started
Enemy submarines had shown only minor activity around the Caribbean back in early February and the Gulf of Mexico sinkings hadn’t started.
At Haiti, Captain Thompson received a change in orders and sailed Feb. 14 – Valentine Day – for New York. The Miraflores was seen the following day at sea, still near Haiti, but on her course.
That was the last that was seen or heard of the freighter that spent years in the banana trade between New Orleans and Central America. She was 270 feet long, built in England in 1921.
Her owners have sought in vain for some clue to the mystery of the Miraflores and her crew that sailed off into oblivion.
Wives wait patiently
But the wives of the missing crewmen wait patiently, certain they will return.
At her home here, the wife of First Assistant Engineer Robert Keenan said:
If I know he is alive, only I could get word to him that I am still waiting and the light is still burning.
Engineer Keenan, a native of Belfast, Ireland, had sailed the seven seas for 45 years. A lieutenant of the British Naval Reserves, he’d been sailing out of New Orleans for 20 years.
He was one of the 19 survivors from a crew of 70 when the British freighter Maori went down in 1909 off the coast of Cape Town, South Africa. During World War I, his ship was torpedoed and sunk off the Dardanelles, in 1915.
Mrs. Keenan reassured herself:
He went through the last war and I know that he would have been prepared for any emergency.
Captain Thompson, also a native of Ireland, spent the past 20 years of his 35 years at sea sailing from New Orleans.
Mrs. Thompson, who spends hours listening to shortwave broadcasts, heard a German announcement March 9 claiming three ships sunk off the American coast the night of Feb. 15.
She refuses to believe that the ship and the entire crew were lost. She said hopefully:
I feel confident that someone is alive somewhere and will return.
Skilled crews from India, powerful planes to go to new bases
By Robert P. Martin, United Press staff writer
Chungking –
The new United States Air Force in China may be one of the Pacific area’s most powerful combined offensive and defensive units.
Authorities said today that they are convinced that the American air fleet will be powerful enough to support any limited Chinese offensive while at the same time supplying the balance of firepower heretofore lacked by the Chinese in their efforts to stop Jap invasion forces. The new force at first may be comparatively small, but it may help turn the tide of the Chinese War.
Skilled bomber crews from India will be augmented by 10-15% of the American Volunteer Group “Flying Tigers” from Burma who on July 4 will be returned to the U.S. Army. Some of the AVG fliers will return to the United States on leave.
The Chinese have confidence too in the leadership. They point out that Brig. Gen. Claire L. Chennault, leader of the AVG, established one of the war’s best fighter records and Col. Caleb V. Haynes, leader of the bomber formations, is one of America’s foremost bombardment experts.
The equipment is expected to be the best the United States has available. Most deadly single item may be the combination fighter-dive bomber which experts said:
…packs the greatest punch of any plane in the Far East.
Principal problem facing the Allied air leaders, however, will be the one of supplying fuel and, later, of replacing parts and perhaps reinforcing both equipment and men.
Col. Haynes will probably concentrate much of his energy toward the supply problem. It will not be a new obstacle to him. Through Col. Haynes, the AVG obtained its essential supplies in Burma.
Sources here point out that it was the Chinese lack of aerial firepower which has permitted the Jap successes to date.
Aviation circles illustrate with the case of Kweilin, which the Japs bombed unmercifully without opposition. Then one day, the AVG Flying Tigers appeared. They shot down nine of the 18 raiders and the Nipponese fliers haven’t been back to Kweilin since.
Rice, salt, medical equipment delivered by special mission – here’s eyewitness account
By Walter L. Briggs, United Press staff writer
Ferry Command Headquarters, India –
United States Army airmen, flying through the first breaks in the Indian monsoon, are delivering rice, salt and medical supplies to Chinese troops still fighting in Burma.
I flew with the first of these “rice missions” and talked with weary Chinese soldiers after the American pilot landed on a treacherous Burma valley airfield surrounded by 14,000-foot mountains. I rode in a transport piloted by hefty, jovial Lt. John Payne, Paducah, Ky., formerly an Eastern Airlines pilot on the Atlanta-Chicago run. The co-pilot was Max Mitchell, 21, Dallas, Tex., who joined up a year ago and learned flying in the Army.
With two others in the crew to throw out rice bags and the parachute-fitted medicine boxes, we climbed over the mountains and found our destination by instrument.
Diving low over the Chinese positions in the valley, the crew jettisoned the rice and Lt. Payne decided to land and get first-hand information on the Chinese needs. He set down the plane on a muddy field, nearly losing the landing gear.
The Chinese greeted us as lifesavers, joyfully accepting the cargo and saying they also needed salt. Another plane later delivered 1,000 pounds.
We returned to our base for a second load, preceded by an RAF transport which had also landed on a tricky field where other Chinese were encamped. For the rest of the day, transports were shuttling between India and Burma in relays.
Riverside, Cal. (UP) –
Two staff sergeant pilots were killed yesterday near Santa Ana, Cal., when their pursuit planes crashed in the air and plummeted to the earth.
The victims were Staff Sergeants Victor E. Thacker, Lancaster, Cal., and W. M. Rath, Almond, Wis. The planes were on a routine training flight when they collided at 1,500 feet and plunged to the ground before the pilots could bail out. The planes burned upon hitting the ground.
Commissioner Scott’s term expires Monday
Washington (Scripps-Howard Newspaper Alliance) –
Failure of the Senate Interstate Commerce Committee to act on the reappointment of Commissioner John W. Scott to the Federal Power Commission will leave the FPC minus one member on Monday.
Mr. Scott’s term expires on that day and, under the FPC law, no provision is made for an interim holdover.
President Roosevelt sent the nomination to the Senate May 12. Not until June 16 did Chairman Burton K. Wheeler (D-MT) name a subcommittee to hear Commissioner Scott or any objectors to his remaining on the FPC.
Senator D. Worth Clark (D-ID), subcommittee chairman, said he would start the hearings next Tuesday. That will be a day after Mr. Scott’s term expires.
Mr. Scott is a lawyer from Gary, Ind.
Senator Charles O. Andrews (D-FL) has objected to the reappointment, because of certain personnel problems at the commission. But Senator Clark said that, unless adequate evidence of “incompetency” or “lack of integrity” was presented, he would favor confirmation.
St. Louis, Mo. (RNS) –
One of the main tasks of organized education, in a time of social change, is to encourage respect for religious tradition, Dr. Daniel A. McGregor of New York, head of national educational work for the Protestant Episcopal Church, declared here at a conference held under the auspices of the Church’s Department of Education. The conference was called to consider the role of religious education in wartime.
Dr. McGregor said:
In a changing social situation, it becomes the duty of organized education not only to discuss and to make rational religious experiences, but first of all to provide those experiences.
He added:
I am thinking of such experiences as obedience and reverence to God, social attitudes of cooperation and consideration, appreciation of the good and beautiful, creative actions and freedom, and respect for religious tradition.
Dr. Willard Goslin, superintendent of schools of Webster Grove, Mo., told the assembled educators that in the development of a sound educational system, the public school, the church, and all other functioning community agencies should get together – each to contribute its special part on the work to be done.
Commenting on the psychological effect of the war on the very young, Dr. Goslin asserted that:
Even six-year-olds suffer.
They learn of the war from movies, comic strips, conversation of older people, newspaper headlines, and they are terrified.
Religious education can be of the utmost value here, provided it has teachers who know how to understand a child.
Another speaker, Dr. Clifford L. Stanley of Cape Girardeau, Mo., warned his listeners that there is a danger of people falling into despair because of the war.
He said:
A Christian doctrine of hope must be preached to counteract this danger.
Two Japanese carriers hit by American bombs in Coral Sea battle
By Stanley Johnston, Chicago Tribune foreign correspondent
Stanley Johnson, the only reporter on the U.S. aircraft carrier Lexington before it was sunk, tells how U.S. naval fliers, determined to wipe out a Jap naval force in the Coral Sea, attacked and sunk a second Jap aircraft carrier.
In her last night, the Lexington was not merely on the receiving end of battle blows.
Her airmen, banding with those of the second carrier in our seaborne air force, delivered a devastating left hook, followed by a right cross to the Japanese chin, almost at the moment when the Japanese were showering their blitz upon us.
The only real records available for the deeds of the day are the reports and memories of the gallant boys who flew away to do their jobs. They say that at least three Japanese aircraft carriers opposed them in the fighting that day with more than 100 Japanese planes. Many of them told me that they sank one of the carriers and left another totally enveloped in fierce flames.
Scouts off at dawn
Our scouts were off at dawn. They made contact with the Japanese at 8:10 a.m. on May 8. At 9:30 a.m., our dive bombers and torpedo planes with a small fighter escort took the air to blast the Japs.
The Japanese were fortunate in being in the area of the sea where there was an unusually large number of hard rain squalls. These served to screen parts of their ocean fleet – one squadron of a dozed heavy dive-bombers from the Lexington never did find a Japanese target and returned without striking a blow.
Our first contact with the enemy was made by one of the youngest pilots in our scouting force. To amplify his report, Lt. Robert Dixon, skipper of the scout units, flew into the youngster’s sector and remained there two hours and 30 minutes. During that time, he had a number of brushes with enemy planes, but remained over the hostile ships sending out radio messages and directional signals to lead the oncoming strike squadrons to the target.
First American attack
The first American attack came when Cdr. Bill Ault, leading four heavy dive bombers, and Lt. Cdr. Jimmy Brett at the head of 11 torpedo planes struck at Japanese carrier No. 1.
Cdr. Brett said later:
The Japs were using the same protective screen for their carrier that we generally did, while cruising. It was screened by several cruisers and destroyers that we ignored, even to the extent of flying right over one cruiser while going in. The cruiser didn’t fire at us. She must have mistaken us for some of their own – the weather was so bad it was an easy mistake to make.
We slid through a bit of scud and came out astern of the carrier. Her lookout recognized us and she began a sharp right turn. All the anti-aircraft guns in the unit opened up on us, bouncing us around some, but didn’t stop us.
Enemy fighters take air
Several enemy fighters – I saw Messerschmitt types with liquid-cooled engines, Zeros and older fixed landing-gear types mixed together – came at us, but we were in the final run by that time, well fanned out.
Just before I let my fish [torpedo] go, I could see the carrier well. Her decks were empty – all her planes were in the air, either defending the ship or pounding our own carriers. We saw the whole Jap vessel jump as our torpedoes began exploding. Then we were busy dodging fighters, calling down our own fighting pilots, and heading home.
We closed up into a tight formation so all our gunners could get crossfire into any Jap fighters bothering us. It was well, too, because 12 Japanese came down on us. They came cautiously because we were flying only 30 feet above the water.
Two Zeros shot down
After several gentle passes in our direction, two of the Zeros got caught in our gunners’ converging fire and dropped flaming into the sea. The rest cleared out and left us alone. Our problem then became one of nursing our fuel – we were damned low – so that we could make it back home. Thirty miles out, one plane’s tanks ran dry. The pilot made a perfect wheels-up landing. Later, a destroyer picked up the pilot and his two men. The rest of us made it back. We could hardly believe, from the way the Lexington looked at that time, that she had been hurt.
Let us revert for a moment to the attack on Japanese carrier No. 1. As Cdr. Brett’s torpedo planes came smoking out of the low cloud, Cdr. Ault’s four heavy dive bombers were gaining altitude for their attacks. They first flew over the Japanese at 3,500 feet, picked the carrier from amid the formations below. The Japanese ships were momentarily in clear air, but were steaming fast for a rain squall.
The four planes turned into their dives just as the first torpedoes were being released. Much of the carrier’s anti-aircraft were busy with the torpedo planes – there being 11 of them – and Cdr. Ault’s bombers were not molested in their swift, straight descent. The result was that three of their bombs plunged through the carrier’s deck. Towering masses of smoke and debris rose after each blast.
Incendiary effect
One of the torpedo pilots who saw the dive bombers come down said afterward:
The bombs seemed to act in a dual manner. Not only did they tear that carrier apart, but they also had an incendiary effect. Of course, that’s not so strange. Carriers have huge tanks full of fuel oil and high test gasoline. Once this starts to burn, it’s goodbye.
Only one of this force of four dive bombers reached the Lexington after the battle. A cloud of Zeros intercepted Cdr. Ault’s little force and shot down three. The commander’s last words over the radio were:
My rear gunner is badly hit. I’m also wounded. Going down on the water.
Ensign’s story
Ensign N. A. Sterrie, one of Cdr. Brett’s torpedo plane pilots, said:
Many Japanese fighters showed up during our attack, but they didn’t push their attacks home. The carrier went into a tight constant turn when it was attacked and was smoking heavily when we went away. As I came out of my attack, I found one of our group had saved his torpedo, since the carrier seemed to be definitely gone.
He turned away and made a run toward one of the four cruisers that were accompanying the carrier. I had no fish but accompanied him on the attack in order to absorb some of the anti-aircraft fire from that ship’s guns. We were unable to see the result of the torpedo shot.
No. 2 also hit
The assault on Japanese carrier No. 2, was just as furious as the raids made by the Lexington’s squadrons on Jap No. 1.
Ensign J. H. Jorgenson in one of our carrier No. 2’s torpedo planes told me after the fight:
We had an uneventful flight to our objective.
We circled once and saw two carriers, two battleships, three heavy cruisers and three light cruisers. They were increasing their speed to 25 knots and were spread over a distance of five miles long and three to four miles wide.
Bomb hits deck
We dived on the starboard carrier. The skipper, Lt. Cdr. W. O. Burch, led and I followed. My bomb was released at 2,000 feet. I could see the skipper’s 1,000-pounder hit flush on the carrier’s deck. Then saw a lot of smoke.
As he swooped up out of his dive, Ensign Jorgenson said his plane was hit by Japanese anti-aircraft fire.
As I gained a climbing altitude, three fighters jumped my tail. Their bullets peppered the plane and especially the wings and front end of the fuselage. Some passed in over my right shoulder and tore off the rear of my telescope. Others hit the back of the seat [which was armored]. More came through wrecking most of my instruments. One bullet passed through the oxygen tube which was lying on my forearm – causing the tube to smoke.
Three bullets grazed my right leg and I got some shrapnel or powder burns in my foot and toes.
The plane became difficult to control, being heavy in the left wing, the ensign said.
Engine loses power
I flew through some clouds and my radioman saw one Japanese fighter. Three more attacked from above and ahead. One came in head-on and I shot into him until he veered off smoking. After this, my engine began to lose power – missing on one or two cylinders. I picked up a group of Douglas scout bombers and came home.
Arriving, I tried to land with flaps down, but the plane was uncontrollable. I then raised the flaps, notified the carrier I would land in the water, and sat the plane down in the sea. I was picked up four minutes later.
Lt. E. S. McCuskey, also from United States carrier No. 2, was in a fighter accompanying a group of dive bombers and torpedo planes.
Headed for rainstorm
When we saw the enemy, they were steering for the cover of a rainstorm. In their group were three battleships, two carriers, with an accompanying screen of destroyers. I was at 2,000 feet and the torpedo planes were right down on the water.
As the torpedo planes went in, I could see the Japanese main batteries firing their heaviest guns – either six or eight inches – in salvos. They were kicking up spouts of water close to our planes, which were all fanned out to cover any angle the carrier might turn to evade the missiles.
30 seconds later, I saw three Zeros above preparing to attack. I closed in on my leader, Lt. George S. Leonard, to warn him. I overshot and the first Jap dived on me from above and behind. I applied full throttle and made a steep climbing turn toward him. His tracer bullets trailed behind my plane.
In a few seconds, I saw him pull up in front of me, smoke, hesitate, then go down in flames – evidently hit by one of our fighters.
Scissor maneuver
Lt. McCuskey saw another Zero commencing a dive at him. He turned toward the plane in a scissor maneuver to avoid the attack. Then, as the Japanese pilot climbed for another dive, the ensign raised the nose of his plane until his sights were full on the enemy.
Lt. McCuskey wrote:
I fired 400 rounds into him. He did not attack, but turned, struggled into a cloud with smoke trailing behind him. At this moment, another Zero attacked me from above and as I was almost at stalling speed, I went into a cloud to avoid him. As I entered, I saw three more Zeros below and behind.
The dive-bombing pilots of United States carrier No. 2 were busy meanwhile, dropping their big explosive charges on and around the Japanese carrier No. 2. There were 24 of these which accounts for the large number of hits – seven – as compared with the Lexington’s total of three on the carrier her dive bombers hit. The Lexington’s main dive bomber group, remember, did not find the Japanese at all, and the only dive-bombing support given the torpedo planes was by four planes.
An audience
One of the most determined and gallant acts of the entire five-day battle came during the attack of United States carrier No. 2’s dive-bombing groups. Lt. John J. Powers, one of the pilots, had told his comrades that he was going to put his big bomb into a Japanese carrier:
…come hell or high water.
Lt. Powers’ dive was watched by a number of men. They said he held his ship straight for the Japanese deck until he was down to 500 feet – point-blank range even for a dive bomber. There he released his bomb and began his recovery. The missile went true to its mark and the resulting explosion shattered not only the Jap ship, but also Lt. Powers’ plane.
One of his fellow pilots told me:
There is no question that John knew what he was doing. He knew that if you go below about 700 feet in your recovery the blast will get you every time. To stay above 700 feet means you must release your bomb no lower than 1,000 feet. He held his to 500 and was probably below 300 feet when the explosion came. He just decided not to miss, God bless him.
Washington (UP) –
President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill are like two battleships whose whereabouts must be kept secret for reasons of security, White House Secretary Stephen T. Early said today.
To newspapermen clamoring for details of the Roosevelt-Churchill conference “somewhere in the United States,” Mr. Early said:
I’ve got a battleship in the person of the President, and now another in the person of the Prime Minister to protect for the duration. Their whereabouts, their operations, their movements must be kept just as secret as if they were two men-o’-war in times like these.
Athens, Ga. (UP) –
The “pressure need” for a unified command – the coordination of all our armed forces under one head – was emphasized last night by Rear Admiral William Glassford, Commandant of the 6th Naval District, who recently directed operations of surface craft in the Southwest Pacific.
Admiral Glassford told a banquet:
The successes obtain by putting the Army and Navy and other services under the direction of one man has been shown only too plainly by the Japanese.
…which climaxed formal opening exercises of the Navy’s pre-flight training school at the University of Georgia.
Los Angeles (UP) –
The Los Angeles County Defense Council asserted today that Secretary of War Henry Stimson had depressed the morale of civilian defense workers by saying that the threat of air raids on the Pacific Coast had been “greatly reduced.”
Mr. Stimson said American naval victories in the Pacific had lessened the danger of attack on the coast.
Sheriff E. W. Biscailuz and Harold W. Kennedy, executive director of the council, wrote Mr. Stimson:
It is unfair to the thousands of volunteers whom we have trained and urged to be constantly ready to respond to posts of duty in the civilian defense program if the need for this protective service is past and we continue to hold them unnecessarily in readiness.
Your reported statement has the very definite effect of lessening the morale and interest of thousands.
New York (UP) –
This is the story of three red faces – one of them the Duchess of Windsor’s.
The Duchess has been getting mailed advice on girdles, stockings and such from “Barbara Adams.” She decided to drop into the department store and thank Miss Adams.
There ain’t no Miss Adams. It’s two fellows named John Johnson and Milton Klein who used the feminine name for business purposes.
Everybody blushed.
Decision in Ryan case seen affecting disputes now pending settlement
Washington (UP) –
The War Labor Board today established a wartime pattern for granting labor unions security:
…against disintegration under the impact of war.
A 10–2 decision awarding the United Auto Workers (CIO) a government-backed maintenance of membership at the Ryan Aeronautical Co., San Diego, Cal., was announced by the Board as ending a “14-month dispute” over union security.
The Board also voted unanimously to award 1,440 Ryan employees a blanket wage increase of 10¢ an hour, retroactive to Oct. 15, 1941, and to increase the basic hiring rate to 60¢ an hour, with increases to 75¢ after three months, retroactive to July 1941.
New conference July 6
The wage increases will bring Ryan into line with the rest of the aircraft industry in Southern California, the Board said. All other companies adjusted wage rates upward last fall under a stabilization agreement worked out by the Office of Production Management.
Meanwhile, the WPB Labor Division called another West Coast aircraft stabilization conference to open at Los Angeles July 6. Problems of wage and employment stabilization will be taken up.
Recent War Labor Board decisions establishing four variations of union maintenance of membership form a background for consideration of union shop demands by 180,000 employees of the four “Little Steel” companies and 200,000 employees of General Motors.
Formula among these
Board officials said it was a safe assumption that one of these four formulae would be applied in the steel and auto company disputes:
The Marshal Field formula – any member who voluntarily signs an agreement to retain his union membership must do so as a condition of employment.
The International Harvester Co. formula – provides for an election in which all members are bound by a majority vote on the maintenance of union membership.
The Federal Shipbuilding formula – allows any member to resign before the contract is signed, but provides that if he resigns after the contract is signed, he must continue union dues payments.
Over crisis period
The fourth formula, the one on which the largest majority of the Board agrees, as applied in the Ranger Aircraft, E. Z. Mills and Ryan cases – permits resignation from the union within 15 days of the Board’s order, but requires that workers maintain their membership as a condition of employment thereafter.
Dr. Frank Graham, public member who wrote the Ryan decision, said that in his opinion, the formulae take the Board “over the crisis period” in considering union demands for security in return for the no-strike pledge for duration of the war.
He said:
This maintenance of membership clause provides, during the war, for a free and fair basis for responsible union-management cooperation for all-out production. It is in the interest of equity that the union, which might win by a strike the more complete security of the union shop or even the closed shop, be assured maintenance of membership which it already has or may voluntarily acquire.
Two members dissent
The dissenting opinion was written by E. J. McMillan, employer representative and president of the Standard Knitting Mills, and concurred in by E. H. Horton, treasurer of the Chicago Bridge & Iron Corp.
The dissenters said:
No agency of the government should compel either party, against its wishes, to execute a contract which compels the discharge of an employee… who for some valid reason may wish to withdraw from the union.
No man in the present emergency should be denied by government order the right of work and thus contribute to the success of our defense program because he does not wish to continue membership in a union.
Various industry branches to be reorganized
Washington (UP) –
A member of the Senate committee investigating the war program said today he expected Philip D. Reed, chief of the War Production Board’s Division of Industry Branches, to resign.
Mr. Reed was criticized by the committee for slowness in converting industry to war production.
Shortly after the report was filed with the Senate yesterday, a WPB spokesman said various WPB industry branches would be reorganized within a week or 10 days, entailing the abolition of some positions and some general personnel shifts.
Nelson defends Reed
WPB Chairman Donald M. Nelson declared his “full confidence” in Mr. Reed, General Electric’s $120,000-a-year board chairman, and said he hoped Mr. Reed:
…will continue his valuable assistance to the war effort as long as he can do so.
Mr. Nelson said:
I am sorry that the Truman Committee, which has done and is doing such valuable work, should have been critical of the work of Philip Reed.
During the past five months, American industry has been converted from peace to war. Mistakes have, of course, been made. But the record of the War Production Board speaks for itself. The production we are getting is due to the teamwork of many able men.
Mr. Reed is entitled to full credit for his participation in this work. I have full confidence in him and sincerely hope that he will continue his valuable assistance in the war effort as long as he can do so.
Reorganization planned
Mr. Reed said he had not read it; that he was satisfied with the way the industry branches were working and that they were improving all the time.
The WPB spokesman described the impending reorganization as an “extensive organization realignment,” but said they were being made on the board’s initiative and not as a result of the report of the committee headed by Senator Harry S. Truman (D-MO).
Coincident with the reorganization, the WPB was considering a plan for an “industrial WPA,” which Mr. Reed estimated would cost the government $200 million and keep in operation some 24,000 companies driven to the wall by the war effort.
Although plans have not reached the final stage, the tentative program calls for government loans to plants unable to operate at a profit as a result of WPB curtailment orders. The government would also defray for the duration of the war the fixed charges and maintenance costs of plants actually forced to close. Mr. Reed said similar measures have been adopted in both Britain and Germany.
Presentation of the Truman Report to the Senate touched off a debate in which Senators Tom Connally (D-TX) and Scott W. Lucas (D-IL) defended the WPB as having done a “magnificent job.”
Attack on Nelson denied
Mr. Connally interpreted the report as an attack on Mr. Nelson and said Mr. Nelson himself considered that it reflected on his policies. Other committee members assured him no reflection on Mr. Nelson was intended. Mr. Truman said the committee was trying to “save Mr. Nelson from Mr. Reed” and other dollar-a-year men who, in the committee’s opinion, might cause him embarrassment.
Mr. Connally was the only member of the 10-man committee to vote against the report. He took the position that it was applying hindsight unnecessarily to a situation that existed months ago.
Buffalo, NY (UP) –
Round-the-clock operation of 800 aircraft warning stations in the Buffalo-Pittsburgh area will begin Monday under American Legion control, Army authorities announced today.
George A. Mead of Buffalo, past New York State commander of the American Legion, has been named regional civilian director of the posts located in 15 Western New York counties and parts of West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania. They will be under the jurisdiction of I Fighter Command, U.S. Army.
Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s arrival in the United States was disclosed by the White House last night, and today he was engaged in momentous discussions with President Roosevelt. Observers in both London and Washington expected their talks to lead to the opening of a second front in Europe, and such speculation was encouraged officially.
London (UP) –
A formidable Allied army with the most modern equipment is ready and eager to move into a second front against the Axis in Europe or the Near East if President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill give the order.
The prospect of a second front in 1942 was the subject of increased speculation as a result of British reverses in Libya, heavier Axis attacks in the Russian Crimea and the fact that powerful striking forces are being built up in the British Isles.
AEF grows steadily
These forces, which might be used in Europe to force Hitler to weaken more distant fronts or might be rushed to other world sectors, include:
About 1.5 million highly-trained British troops, plus a big Canadian striking force which some sources estimate 200,000 troops and a formidable force of Poles, Free French, Czechs, Belgians, Norwegians and Dutch.
United States Expeditionary Forces in the British Isles are being steadily reinforced and have some of the world’s best equipment, believed to exceed the firepower of German armored strength in Libya.
The RAF, with strong American aid coming, could provide a protective umbrella for assault forces comparable to the support which the Luftwaffe gave the German forces in Belgium and France.
Ship problem remains
The RAF has grown in all types of planes, and must be stronger than the Luftwaffe, although there is no indication in official sources whether Allied air support is now considered strong enough to support a full-scale invasion of Europe.
Ships for an invasion army are still the great problem, but U.S. naval units are reinforcing the British Home Fleet and probably could stop any forces Germany could throw into the battle.
A typical headline in the afternoon newspapers was:
SECOND FRONT TALK IN UNITED STATES PLOTTING TURNING POINT IN WAR.
….which informed the British public that Mr. Churchill, who only three days ago saw King George at Buckingham Palace, was at the White House.
Arrives at ‘supreme hour’
Anxiety was increasing not only over the military situation in Libya, but over the position in the Mediterranean generally because of the Admiralty’s silence regarding the air-naval battle of last weekend. The problem of shipping, vital to the opening of any second front, was regarded with grave concern.
The Evening Standard, owned by Lord Beaverbrook, who has led the demand for an immediate second front in Western Europe, said editorially:
Churchill arrives at Washington at one of the supreme hours of the war. No one disguises the fact that a sudden series of new dilemmas and setbacks confronts the Allies… The news from Russia is also serious… All other issues, grave as they are, may be subordinated by the opportunity of opening a new front which could face the Axis with greater dilemmas than even those which obsess us.
Responsible quarters said that the President and Mr. Churchill, in what was expected to be their most secret conference of the war, would discuss strategic problems incident to:
…approaching developments.
Speedy decision expected
Feeling was strong here that these developments concerned a second front and that the President and Mr. Churchill would be in a position, as the result of their talks at Washington, to take lightning decisions on matters of great moment.
A responsible informant said:
The President and Mr. Churchill will probably examine the whole world situation, study reports of their production experts and make certain that they are in complete agreement on broad strategical policies.
Apparently recent conferences of British and American military and production chiefs have reached the stage where the two chiefs must make final decision. Thus they decided that this was the best time to review the Allied position and reaffirm agreements which obviously formed the basis for recent talks here and in Washington.
Asked whether Mr. Churchill went to Washington because of the plainly increasing anxiety here over the situation in Libya and continued loss of Allied shipping, the informant said:
Remember we want an active second front in Europe in addition to the active front in the Middle East, not instead of it.
He denied that Mr. Churchill had gone to Washington to discuss the situation created by Axis successes in the Mediterranean.
Mr. Churchill decided some time ago to visit the President, the informant said.
Washington (UP) –
President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill conferred secretly somewhere in this nation today on establishment of a second European front and, probably, increased U.S. aid in the Middle East where the Nazis are driving hard toward Egypt.
Mr. Churchill’s arrival with his ranking war leaders was announced by the White House last night with the statement that the talks between the Anglo-American leaders would deal with:
…the conduct of the war and the winning of the war.
The question of a second front on the European continent was uppermost in Washington speculation on the precise nature of their conversations, in view of the virtual promise to Russia by the U.S. and Britain to create such a front.
U.S. planes In action
But serious British reverses in Libya were causing great concern here and in London because of their immediate importance in the Allied struggle for control of the Mediterranean.
U.S. Army airmen have already begun operations in the Mediterranean Theater, sending a squadron of land-based four-motored bombers into successful action against an Italian Fleet, in which the Americans scored hits on two of Mussolini’s battleships and fought off, without a single loss of their own, German Messerschmitts.
Mrs. Churchill, in view of the latest Libyan developments, may seek the basing of additional American flying groups in North Africa, not only to strike at Axis sea power in the Mediterranean, but to blast at German Gen. Erwin Rommel’s mechanized units which have apparently cut off Tobruk again and have forced the main British forces back to the Egyptian border.
Early action unlikely
Creation of a second land front in Europe, according to many observers, is still in the future, when compared to the immediacy of the Mediterranean situation. It may be months before the United States can join in force an Allied onslaught on the Western European front. If a large-scale action on the continent were to be launched soon, it would be necessary for the British to furnish the bulk of men and equipment.
Speculation ‘justified’
White House Secretary Stephen T. Early, in announcing Mr. Churchill’s arrival last night at a surprise press conference, said reporters would be “perfectly justified” in speculating that the conferences would deal with the second front question.
Official quarters here and in London were certain that the two men, flanked by the ranking leaders of their armed forces, would get down to making decisions now that the groundwork of a second front has been laid by a series of conferences on the subject for the past two months in London and Washington.
Move to aid Russia due
The second front received its first big boost last week when the White House, announcing the conferences between President Roosevelt and Soviet Foreign Commissar V. M. Molotov, said they had reached a full understanding:
…with regard to the urgent tasks of creating a second front in Europe in 1942.
British and American officials emphasized that Mr. Churchill would confine himself to “strictly war business” while here – that there would be no public appearances and no radio broadcasts. That version of the Prime Minister’s activities fitted in with Mr. Early’s comment that he did not expect any further statements this week.
Trip kept close secret
Mr. Churchill’s third trip in the last year to meet Mr. Roosevelt was the best kept secret of the war. There had not been even a hint that the President was expecting him. Until the White House called newspaper and press association offices last night to say that Mr. Early would meet the press.
His announcement was:
Mr. Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of Great Britain, is again in the United States. The Prime Minister will confer while here with the President and the conferences will begin immediately.
The subject of the conferences will be very naturally the war, the conduct of the war and the winning of the war.
With the Prime Minister when he arrived were Gen. Sir Alan Brooke, Maj. Gen. Sir Hastings Ismay, Brig. Gen. G. M. Stewart, Sir Charles Wilson [Mr. Churchill’s physician], John Martin, the Prime Minister’s secretary, and Cdr. C. V. R. Thompson, a secretary and aide to the Prime Minister.
I do not anticipate any further statements by the President or the Prime Minister this week.
The first Roosevelt-Churchill meeting was last August aboard warships off the North American coast. The Atlantic Charter was agreed upon then.
The second meeting was last December when Mr. Churchill was a White House guest for several weeks during the Christmas holidays. The Declaration of the United Nations was signed then.
The men who accompanied Mr. Churchill indicated that the second front would be the major topic of their talks this time. Here is who they are:
Chief of the Imperial Staff, who is charged with all questions of military policy affecting the security of the Empire and responsible for the organization of victory in the field. The British Press Service said he was an exponent of offensive warfare and Britain’s best expert on mechanization. He was a top general in the Battle of Flanders and at Dunkirk.
Chief of Staff to the Minister of Defence, a post held by Mr. Churchill. He represents Mr. Churchill on the British “Chiefs of Staff” Committee and directs the defense secretariat which centralized the Army, Navy and Air Force. He served for many years in India and two years ago, accompanied Mr. Churchill to Paris to attend the French Supreme War Council meeting. Last year, he accompanied Lord Beaverbrook to Moscow to attend the Allied councils.
Director of Plans for the British War Office.
Accompanied by no diplomatic representatives, Mr. Churchill was expected to get right down to the military problems of striking at the Nazis from a new point, presumably by land. The presence of Gen. Brooks and Gen. Ismay and the absence of naval officials appeared to be evidence that the Churchill-Roosevelt conversations would deal with land operations.
The day before the announcement of Mr. Churchill’s arrival, Mr. Roosevelt held an important conference with his Secretaries of War and Navy, and Army Chief of Staff Gen. George C. Marshall, Army Air Chief Lt. Gen. H. H. Arnold and Admiral Ernest J. King, Chief of Naval Operations and Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Naval Forces.
While there was no evidence of attachment to the Churchill announcement, Judge Samuel Roseman, one of Mr. Roosevelt’s top advisers, held an important conference at the White Hose yesterday afternoon shortly before announcement of Mr. Churchill’s arrival.
Shipping talks seen
Among those there were Dean Acheson, Assistant Secretary of State and chairman of the Board of Economic Operations; Bernard Bernstein, assistant general counsel of the Treasury and an expert on foreign funds; Treasury general counsel Edward H. Foley Jr.; Oscar Cox, general counsel for the Lend-Lease administration; Edward G. Kemp, general counsel for the Budget Bureau.
Inseparably linked with any discussion of a second front would be the matters of shipping and supply, and Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Churchill were expected to delve deeply into those subjects, particularly the phase of getting more munitions and instruments of war to Russia.
Ottawa, Ont. (UP) –
Completing her first airplane trip and her first crossing of the Atlantic, Queen Wilhelmina, 61-year-old ruler of the Netherlands, arrived in Canada yesterday by plane from England, on her way to visit President and Mrs. Roosevelt.
Her daughter, the Crown Princess Juliana, and her two granddaughters, the Princesses Beatrix and Irene, whom she had not seen for more than two years, greeted her at the airport, as did Prime Minister W. L. Mackenzie King.
Premier Pieter Gerbrandy and Minister of Commerce Pieter Kerstens of the Netherlands government-in-exile will soon follow Queen Wilhelmina to the United States to set up a post-war plan of economic cooperation and discuss Allied peace objectives, it was announced today.
The Aneta (Dutch) News Agency said Queen Wilhelmina will accompany Princess Juliana to Lee, Mass., where the crown princess had a summer home, next week.
By David Dietz, Scripps-Howard science editor
The greatest health problem facing the United States in World War II is syphilis, according to Capt. C. S. Stephenson, head of the Division of Preventive Medicine of the Navy’s Bureau of Medicine and Surgery.
Selective Service officials found 63,000 cases of syphilis in the first million men examined for the Army.
The Navy, Capt. Stephenson made clear, is interested in the problem from three approaches. First, it is interested in protecting the health of its own personnel. Second, it is interested in having a reservoir of healthy citizens from which to draw future personnel. Third, it is interested in seeing that disease does not reduce the industrial production.
The problem of syphilis, Capt. Stephenson emphasized, is not primarily a problem of the treatment of the disease, but one of prevention, of protecting the well from the diseased.
In this connection, he pointed out that 64 years ago, Dr. J. Marion Sims, then president of the American Medical Association, stressed the necessity of a public-health approach to syphilis, urging that existing boards of health be given the same power over syphilis which they then possessed over cholera, smallpox and yellow fever.
But though Dr. Sims preached the right doctrine in 1876, Capt. Stephenson says that no one tried to apply it until 1917 when Newton D. Baker, then Secretary of War, took action.
Similar action was taken before our entrance into World War II, he added, by joint agreement of the War and Navy Departments, the Federal Security Agency, and state health departments.
This agreement, for the “control of the venereal diseases in areas where armed forces or national defense employees are concentrated,” was implemented by Congress with the passage of the May Act. This act prohibits prostitution within areas designated by the Army and Navy,