The Daily Alaska empire Newspaper, March 18, 1941, Page 1

THE DAILY ALASKA EMPIRE VOL. LVIL, NO. 8674. NAZI SUB REPO “ALL THE NEWS ALL THE TIME” JUNEAU, ALASKA, TUESDAY, MARCH 18, 1941. MEMBER ASSOCIATED PRESS PRICE TEN CENTS RTED OFF COAMI U-Boats Hit Again At High Sea Shipping NEWBLOWS "MEN WANTED" SIGNS ARE STRUCK ATCONYOYS German Submarines Re-' ported fo Have Sunk 5 Armed Merchantmen BRITISH ADMIRALTY. | ADMITS HEAVY LOSSES Spokesman Declares En-| emy Bringing Info Play AllKinds of Warfare (BY ASSOCIATED PRESS) The German High Command re- ports today slashing new blows at Great Britain's vital convoy system. The High Command said a Ger- man submarine sank five armed’ merchant ships, totalling 35,000 tons, in an attack on a convoy and that a 4,000 ton merchantman was sent (Continued on Page Seven) WASHINGTON—In the public mind America’s National Defense Problem No. 1 is production of airplanes. Actually, however, it isn't. War Department chiefs haven't been advertising it, but their great- est wory is gunpower. You can't fight a war without powder. And up until recently the annual powd- er production of all U. S. factories was only 12,000,000 pounds, which would last us a few short weeks in wartime. * In comparison, the United States produced 500,000,000 pounds of powder at the end of the last war,| and had partially built factories which would have produced another 500,000,000 pounds a few months after the Armistice. But in 1919-20 these factories were torn down or converted, by companies worried lest the Gov- ernment get into munitions manu- facture and compete with their pri- vate business. wlal 491,300 SHIPBU By FREDERICK GARDNER AP Feature Service NEW YORK, March 18. — The| “Help Wanted” signs will be out| on the employment gates of scores of new war industry factories des- tined for completion in the United States in the next 12 months. . Payrolls have been climbing sharply in aircraft, shipbuilding, machine tool, steel and other in- dustries holding the bulk of the $15,000,000,000 in arms contracts for home and British defenses. But the big climb in jobs as re- Twenty years have passed. Today, with the country facing the most; urgent rearmament race in history, private companies still are ‘worried over government operation—especi- ally of nitrate plants. It happens that nitrate is the| key to gunpowder production. Man- ufacture of powder is a simple and speedy process. But it is made from explosive nitrate, and nitrate pro- duction is far more difficult. sult of Uncle Sam’s mighty arma- ment program seems to be ahead— particularly in the final half of this year. May End Unemployment Construction engineers through the winter have been rushing work on numerous projects for expansion of aircraft,c shipbuild- ing, munitions and miscellaneous machine-industries, When they are ready for operation, hundreds of SOURCE OF NITRATES There are two kinds of nitrates, natural and synthetic, Major source of the natural is Chife. But it has two big drawbacks: (1) the des- perate shipping shortage; (2) the product’s inferiority to synthetic nitrate for powder purposes, - al- though good enough for fertilizer. Use of synthetic nitrate for ex- plosives is far more efficient, less expensive and militarily more de- sirable. In the United States there are only two big producers of syn-¢ thetic explosive nitrate — Allied Chemical and Dye Corporation, at its giant Hopewell, Va., plant; and duPont. When Defense Commission chiefs decided to build new powder plants, they also had to provide an ade- quate supply of mitrate. ‘And right there they ran “head-on:‘into 'a et dies H etehe [ (Continuea cn Page Four) thousands of workers must be em- ployed to man the machines ahd start the flow of material to the growing fighting forces. Through this re-armament ef- fort, some analysts figure, the United States finally may be able to liquidate its unemployment. Projecting the trends, some esti- mate the jobless would be largely absorbed by the middle of next year, when defense output is ex- pected to attain its peak under the present program. Some residue of unemployed mey remain, even at the height of activity in war industry, it was conceded. However, that was true even in the flush times of the first post-war decade. Agree on Labor Gains Calculations as to jobless totals differ. Estimates at the close of] lagt year .ranged from 5,000,000 t0..around 7,000,000 in some qusr-i ters. The figures agree, however, in showing 8 steady, decline mi AIRCRAFT ILDING €10 EXPLOSIV 'PARTMENT OF LABOR figures show a substantial gainin U. S. employment from January to January. Industries showing biggest gains are those allied with the i BITING (OLD City of Salonika, Key to Back Door of Europ 60 UP, ARMS PLANTS' TAKING TOLL HOW 'EMPLOYMENT HAS CLIMBED | | 1 | HUMANLIVES ‘Seventy-eigh_l Perish in Frigid Sections-Frozen Bodies Are Found (BY ASSOCIATED PRESS) A warm air mass moved eastward out of the Rockies today taking re- lief to the Arctic cold and storms that took at least 78 lives in the bit- | ing cold. | Notwithstanding the warm air| mass from the Rockies the chilied east expects no moderation uutil to- morrow. The coldest place in the nation today is White Face Mountain, N. Y., where the thermometer registers 22 degrees below zero. The death toll from the cold wave and severe storms in Minnesota and North Dakota, the center of the severe wave, went up today to 66 when more frozen bodies were re- covered from snow drifts and stalled automobiles. NIGHTRAID Byl ISMADEBY BRIT.FORCE Bremen, Also Wilhelm-; ; shaven Attacked Anew | by RAF Bombers | | | LONDON, March 18—An ofllcifll;s Ix " Avv British communique this morning| says Royal Air Force night raiders While Greece moved additional forces to the Greek- border facing German troops reported vo munmber 150,000, another report stated that & division of Canadian troops had reached Salonika, unemployment since the Unmed‘ BERLIN, March 18—The Ger- States tossed its gigantic Indus- pan High Command admits several | trial resources into the arms race’ o cone w Killed ¢ Employment, as figured by the ;’:redn?n :tr:uk.s »lutfl:‘l’ghx:m;{ l‘v:‘o National ~ Indudfrial ~ Chnference yirerent sections of Germany. Board, a private research organ- ization supported mainly by cor-' pounded anew at Bremen and also| the German naval base of Wilhelm- {Two Planes Collide During porations, increased nearly 2,000,- 000 last year, counting additions to the labor force. Skilled workers already have gone to a premium in some industries. Overtime is being paid in many plants to stretch the working force over a -longer productive period. Thousands of young -workers are being trained at defense industry centers to step in line for semi- skilled and skilled tasks when the work whistles sound at factories now building. — v NE WYORK, March 18.—Closing quotation of American Can today is 86%, Anaconda 24%, Bethlehem Steel 80%, - Commonwealth and Southern 11-16, Curtiss Wright 9%, General Motors 43%, International Harvester 49, Kennecott 34%, New York Central 12%, Northern Pacific 6%, United States Steel 58%, Pound $4.03%. DOW, JONES AVERAGES The following are today’s Dow. g Jones averages: industrials 123.92, railc 28.08, utilities 19.65. ON WAY TO INTERIOE Mr. and Mrs. Gus Uotilla; mining operators from the Interior, arrived from Seatte on the northbound Al- aska this morning returning to their | cperations site for the summer sea- son. They are stopping at the Gas- tineau. e ————— More persons speak English than any other language, shaven, | Maneuvers Over Pa- [ ADMITS RAID Brid | oge briages i cific Ocean : | WASHINGTON, March 18—The H s enle ‘:Nnvy Department said six men at- tached to the aircraft carrier York- | Any Dela | y beiay — |town were killed yesterday in the i collision of two planes maneuvering {over the Pacific. | (Must Face Government Witnesses on Deporfa- tion on March 31 The location of the maneuvers |is not disclosed IBAD WEATHER | uomord mw v AR LODESTAR e 5 oy . ‘?he:rs, .speyciul presiding judge to hea DC'3 IS wal'mg af White- case. | "As the result of the action, Bridges| NOrse — Three Eleciras | must face the Government's witness- . !es on March 31 in the Pederal Court Due from Falfba"ks PAA’s lockm Lodestar will spend its sixth night in Prince George tonight on its Seattle-Ju- 'at San Prancisco.’ i neau trip which started from Se- "o' DE(RE‘S'"Gjnfle last Thursday. Today the ship | left the Canadian airport but was | forced back by bad weather. The BERLIN, March 18.— German|Douglas DC-3 is still in ‘White- | sources estimate the number of horse waiting for better weather cattle in Denmark at the end of to make a flight to Seattle. November, 1940, was 2,980,000,com-| With coastal weather clear, three pared to 3,190,000 a year before. | Electras left Fairbanks this after- German agricultural experts in- noon bound for Juneau and im- sisted there have been no “mass/ mediate return with passengers ar- slaughterings” and that Denmark riving here on the steamer Alaska. has been ahle to cover its nudaicuflord Thompson and Mason Mc- for fodder, formerly purchased Comb are ‘the only two passengers largely from overseas lands, almost from Fairbanks bound for Juneau entirely from continental sources. jon the 4hiree planes, [ View of Saloniks, Greek port | Greek divisions Only Perfeded Machine ~ In World, in U. 5. Gives Tides for All iedions By JACK STINNETT WASHINGTON, March 18.—I be- long to the school of the UN- mechanically-minded. Time Wwas when I could clean a spark plug on an old Model-T. If I have to, I can get another ribbon into| this typewriter, but, mechanically, those are about my limits, Besides, I was born a landlubber. My knowledge of the sea starts and stops with ferry-boat rides across San Francisco Bay and a few Sun- day afternoon putt-putts around| Long Island Sound. This isn’t worth mentioning, except that it undoubtedly ex- plains why I stood bug-eyed the other afternoon before a machine in the Coast and Geodetic Survey offices and watched L. P. Disney turning a crank, glancing at dials, and as simply as that copying down the figures on the high and low tides at New London, Conn., in March, 1943. | It tides just came and went, all around the oceans just the same] every day in every harbor, it would be no trick at all. But they don’t. Tides are caused by ‘the gravita- tional pull of the sun and the| moon. The sun and the moon change their relationship—there- fore the tides change. That isn't! all. Tides are different in differ- ent harbors, The tide in a round, deep harbor with a narrow mouth is entirely different from that in| a long narrow, wide-mouther har-| bor, bottomed with & comparative-! ly shallow shelf. | “CONSTITUENTS” These variations in the tides from place are called “constituents” (they | are known factors gathered by ob- servation). There may be as many as 37 of them and when all or| part of them are brought to bear,| working out tide tables on pencil and paper would be so laborious that probably even if Disney quad-| rupled his staff in the Section ot} Predictions Division of Tides and Currents, the boys couldn't get 'em| out, Yet the C. and G. Survey’s tide- predicting robot can swallow all these “constituents,” mix them up with the “constants” (the factors, (Continued on Page Seven) 3 important Greek port now’ rushed up reinforcements for & Dossible attark nn Suwia |gow area on March 13 and March being defended by six 90,000 men. Britain numberin, go the Palestine frontier ITALIAN ATTACKS REPULSED Fascists Suffe—rfieavy Loss- es in Moves Against British in Eritrea CAIRO, March 18—Italian counter attacks against positions recently captured by the British forces in Eritrea have been repulsed with heavy Pascist losses. The British officlal statement says the Italians left over 800 prisoners in British hands. Hundreds Killed in Air Raids British Authorities An- nounce Casualties in Liverpool, Glasgow LONDON, March 18.—About 1,000 persons were killed in the German air raids on the Liverpool area on March 12 and March 13 and Glas- 14. The British Air and Home Min- isteries also announce that about 1,300 others are listed as injured. - ,e— — REPLACE LOST LEGS The crab has the remarkable faculty of replacing lost legs, claws and paddles, being able to lose eight or ten such appendages at one time and still carry and de- velop brand new ones. e — | MOVIE DOPE | A movie survey indicates the most popular screen actors, as a group,| usually are between 30 and 34 years| of age. Most popular actresses usu- LONG RANGE VESSEL NEAR U.5. WATERS British Claim Un derséra Craft Wil Prowl on Am- erican Shipping U. 5. GOVERNMENT GETS INFORMATION German Authorities Asseri Report Is Clumsy At- . tempt, Propaganda (By Associated Press) Hitler will send “not only Ger- man U-boats but German battle cruisers” across the Atlantic to prowl in American waters, is the declaration made in London. British Prime Minister Churchill said today that Nazi overseas raid- ers “have already sunk some of our independently routed ships not sailing under a convoy.” This statement was followed by information received the United States Government - ‘at least gne long range Nagl U 3 were quick to scoff at the U-boat report, declaring it & “putup job by American war inciters and clumsy propaganda. We are not so naive as to attack the United States with U-boats.” Prime Minister Churchill, in ex- tending his remarks, said raiders have sunk ships as far west as the 42nd meridian, about 1.500 miles east of New York. The Pan - American neutrality zone extends 300 miles off the At- lantic Coast but the neutrality zone is not recognized by belligerent powers. Reports Washington reports, it is said, claim that one German submarine’ is enroute to the coastal waters of the United States, perhaps a fofe- runner of others such as assailed American ships during the last World War. Despite the German denial that a U-boat has been sent, or is on the way to operate off the Atlan- tic Coast, Washington reflects no little concern. One report said the information came from an intercepted message sent by at least one German sub- marine, probably a 1,500-ton under- seas raider with a range of about 10,000 miles without refueling. -Another report says the report comes to the Government from of- ficial secret source, while Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana, says the report came direct to Great Britain's Ambassador, Lord Halifax. WELLES GETS INFORMATION WASHINGTON, March 18 — Sumner Welles, Acting ' Secretary of State, said he has been told by British Ambassador Viscount Hali- fax the British have received re- ports a German submarine is re- ported to be in the North Atlan- tic waters. HUNTINGTON, section of the student ly to put hands uj sixth-grade teacher at ally are between 25 and 29. e A s Flyers taking bombers from North America to England make the trans- | Atiantic hop in about 10 hours. calls “Phyllis”* Eleven class have that these also bear name—Jean.