Rick advises incentive pay to aid output
Manpower solution simple if all will utilize top capacity, he says
…
U.S. planes keep Japs in retreat on Guinea trails
Pittsburgher trained many of pilots who wiped out foe’s transport fleet; jungle strafing his specialty
By George Weller
…
Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
A forward Tunisian airdrome – (March 11)
Everything around a fighter-bomber airdrome is important, but I know of nothing more important than the repair section. It’s vastly different from airplane shops or garages back home, where nothing more than a little inconvenience resulted from the long layup of a plane or car. Out here there are just so many planes. With us and Germany teeter-tottering for air superiority over Africa, every single one is as precious as though it were made of gold. Every plane out of action is temporarily the same as a plane destroyed.
It is the job of the repair section to take the shot-up planes and get them back into the air a little faster than is humanly possible. And that is what they are doing.
At our desert airdrome this section is in charge of Maj. Charles E. Coverley, of Palo Alto, California. His nickname is “Erk,” and he was one of my fellow travelers from England.
His right arm is a quiet mechanical genius named Walter Goodwin, of Grove City, Pennsylvania – a Regular Army sergeant, just promoted on the field to warrant officer. The men worship him and every officer on the field accepts his judgment on plane damage as final.
It’s a crazy idea, but it works
The repair section operates under a theory that seems outlandish after coming from the peacetime business world. Its motto is to give away everything it can. Instead of hoarding their supplies and yelling that they’re snowed-under with work, they go around the field accepting every job imaginable, fulfilling every pilot’s request, donating from their precious small stock of spare parts to any line mechanic that asks for something. For only by doing it that way do planes get back into the air a few hours sooner.
In the repair section are 250 master craftsmen. They are happy and sincere and proud. I’ve never seen greater willingness to work beyond all requirements than these men show.
Let me give you an example of how the section works. After a recent little to-do with the enemy, 14 of our planes were found to be damaged. Some needed only skin patches; others had washtub holes through the wings and were almost rebuilding jobs. Maj. Coverley and the squadron engineers surveyed the situation all morning, driving in a jeep from one plane to another. I rode with them, and when noon came and not a plane had been moved over to the repair area, I thought to myself this is a mighty slow way to win a war. But I changed my mind a little later.
It takes that long to estimate all the damage, plan out your program, distribute your men and machines over the huge field, and get things rolling. But once rolling…
Two months’ work in 3 days
Two days later I checked on their progress. Five of those wrecked planes were ready for missions that first evening. Three more were delivered the following day. On the third day four more were just about finished. That made 12. The other two had been turned into salvage, for spare parts.
Under peacetime conditions at home, it would have taken perhaps two months even in the finest shops to get all those planes back into the air. But here they were fighting again within three days. You can do the impossible when you have to.
This field operates with a dearth of spare parts, as probably do all our fields at the far ends of the earth. So, the field provides its own spare parts by scrapping the most badly damaged planes, and using the good parts that are left. This happens to about one of every 15 planes that are shot up. These condemned planes are towed to the engineering section, and there they gradually disappear. Finally, they are skeletons – immobile, pathetic, skeletons, picked bare by the scavenging mechanics.
They hope inspectors never come
These salvage planes are nicknamed “hangar queens.” Five of them are sitting on the line now. As you know, every bomber has a name painted on its nose. One of these hangar queens is called Fertile Myrtle. Another is Special Delivery. And a third is Little Eva, which happens also to be the nickname of a friend of mine in Albuquerque.
The Little Eva of Albuquerque spends her life raising flowers and being nice to other people; the Little Eva of Africa has given her life that other planes may fly on to help end the war.
You’d be touched by the sight of the repair shops here. All plane work is done right outdoors.
The only shops are tents where small machine work is done. The tents are three-sided, with one end open. The floor is sand. When the wind blows the men have to wear goggles. Beside every tent, almost within one-jump distance, is a deep slit trench to dive into when the enemy bombers come. Theirs is real war work, and you can’t say they’re much safer than the airmen themselves, for they are subject to frequent bombing.
They say their main hope is that no experts from the factories back home show up to look things over. The experts would tell them a broken wing can’t be fixed this way; a shattered landing gear can’t be fixed that way. But these birds know damned well it can be, for they’re doing it.
1 Like
1 Like
U.S. Navy Department (March 13, 1943)
Communiqué No. 308
South Pacific.
During the night of March 11‑12, two Japanese planes dropped bombs on U.S. positions on Guadalcanal Island. No casualties or damage resulted.
On March 12:
-
During the early morning, Liberator heavy bombers (Consolidated B‑24) carried out minor bombing attacks on Japanese positions at Ballale, in the Shortland Island area, and at Vila and Munda in the New Georgia Group.
-
During the night of March 12‑13, a force of Avenger torpedo bombers (Grumman TBF) attacked Japanese positions at Munda on New Georgia Island. Fires were started in the enemy area.
-
One U.S. plane failed to return from these missions.
The Pittsburgh Press (March 13, 1943)
J. P. Morgan Jr. dies
Death of banking baron in Florida follows heart attack
…
Tunisian drive soon indicated
Eisenhower says foe will be driven to destruction
By Virgil Pinkley, United Press staff writer
…
Guerrillas get American guns
Large army battles Nazis in eastern France
By John A. Parris, United Press staff writer
…
Stephen V. Benét, poet, dies of heart ailment
New York (UP) –
Stephen Vincent Benét, 44, poet and author, died at his home here today of heart ailment.
Mr. Benét, whose John Brown’s Body won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1928, had stopped writing last year to devote all his time to war work.
One of the most accomplished poets and short storywriters of his time, Mr. Benét during the last year had been doing volunteer and unpaid creative work for the government including many radio programs and the “Prayer for United Nations,” which President Roosevelt delivered at the conclusion of his Flag Day address.
I DARE SAY —
Parryscope
By Florence Fisher Parry
When Anne Lindbergh’s North to the Orient came out, a lot of people wondered “Why NORTH?” Now of course we all know. Aviation has given us new concepts of directions, distances, and when we hear that an attempted air raid by the enemy would not necessarily come from across the Atlantic, but more plausibly down from the North to some place like Detroit, Buffalo or Pittsburgh, we take the news in stride.
I’m scared, though, about our complacent assumption that our enemy could no longer break through and invade, by air, in a last-minute convulsion of desperation. There is a growing uneasiness in high quarters about the whereabouts of the main body of the Luftwaffe. It has been practically inactive for too long a time. It seems to have learned its lesson from the inspired strategy of England during the Battle of London, when the RAF couldn’t be made to spend itself, but kept scattered, and WAITED TO BE BUILT UP INTO RETAILIATORY STRENGTH.
Clear call
Now what has brought all this to mind this morning is that I just heard something I could hardly believe; and that is that our local filter center – the aircraft warning center – is actually in serious need of MORE PERSONS to activate it! Its early night shift (from 6:30 to 11:30) is filled. That means that it is the employed women who, at the end of a tough day, go down and serve another five concentrated hours. But the other shifts are crying out for more volunteers. The 8 to 1 mornings; the 1 to 6:30 p.m., the 11:30 p.m. to 4 a.m., and the 4 a.m. to 8. The very hours when UNEMPLOYED women could definitely contribute their time!
Is this war going to be manned and won only by women ALREADY at work? Or are the still “useless” women going to wake up to the need of THEIR OWN instant active participation?
Are you between 18 and 50 years old? With time to make up the hours lost serving on night shifts or on early morning shifts? Then report for service at the filter center in the City-County Bldg. That is, of course, if you are an ALERT woman, with good eyes, hearing, voice and lively coordination.
It’s challenging work, exciting work; not dull or routine, but a call upon every quick resource of brain and nerve.
Work – or else!
Thousands of our fine young women are hustling into uniforms; and the WAACs, WAVES, SPARS and MARINES are holding a field-day in enlistments. That’s fine, that’s as it should be; but it doesn’t take a uniform to make a woman as USEFUL in this war. There are countless ways to serve – yes, and still be supporting the home front.
The boys in uniform stationed here or even passing through here need pretty young girls as well as motherly matrons to assist at the canteens and other social centers. The filter center is SOS-ing for bring young women for their alert job. While industry, all along the line, is crying out for competent women to fill the places left by their trained men.
WORK FOR THE WAR ON ELSE! And if your only – or even your best – accomplishment is looking lovely and feminine and bringing a brief glow of companionship to boys hungry for a normal time – such as they’d have back home – with girls of their own class who speak their same language – for heaven’s sake, get a move on, girls, and turn on the charm wherever your sweet smiles and healthy words of cheer will be likely to do the most good!
Wishful thinking
At the J. P. Harris Theater this week, there is showing one of the most delightful of Walt Disney’s cartoons: Saludos Amigos. It is a 40-minute “long short” and completely entrancing. Obviously, it is fated to take its place on a double feature program. This week, it has The Great Gildersleeve, which, I offer, is a picture which a true Disney fan would run miles to avoid.
Now how charming it would be if, when a slight little gem like Saludos Amigos is offered, it could be coupled with something on the same level of excellence? I am sure countless movie fans will miss this delectable treat just because nothing else on the program invites their patronage.
I idled with the thought, as I was seeing the Disney masterpiece. How charming if, coupled with this, we could have had a really fine, lengthy, magnificently edited newsreel such as One Day in Moscow or one of those peerless World in Action series; and, instead of the orthodox travelogue, a nostalgic flashback travelogue showing Vienna and Paris and Prague and Stalingrad – as they once were, and as they are today? Or would that be too hard to bear? Too unutterably tragic?
1 Like
Pays $42 million!
New York –
The largest single income tax payment – a check for $42 million – ever made in the rich Manhattan District 2 was given today to Internal Revenue Collector William J. Pedrick. The identity of the payer was not revealed.
U.S. fliers continue raid in Solomons
Washington (UP) –
U.S. fliers carried out two more attacks on Munda and also made minor forays against two other Japanese bases in the Solomons, the Navy announced today.
Guadalcanal was raided Thursday night by two Japanese planes, but the Navy said no casualties or damage were caused.
The second raid on Munda – the 90th aerial attack on that enemy air base – started fires.
U.S. Liberators hit Jap ship at Ambon
Gen. MacArthur’s HQ, Australia (UP) –
U.S. Liberator bombers raided the Japanese key base of Ambon Friday, scoring a direct hit on a 7,000-ton cargo ship and shooting down two of eight enemy fighter planes, an Allied communiqué said today.
All U.S. planes returned.
Dutch B-25s and Australian Beaufighters swept Timor Island earlier in the day, heavily damaging grounded enemy planes at Fuiloro Airdrome.
U.S. Flying Fortresses showered the Lakaunai Airdrome near Rabaul Harbor with 500 demolition and fragmentation bombs, starting many fires and explosions. All planes returned.