GREAT BRITISH PRODUCTION

Southland Times, Issue 24891, 3 November 1942, Page 5

GREAT BRITISH PRODUCTION

SEPTEMBER A RECORD MONTH (8.0.W.) LONDON, November 1. “Britain has not yet reached her peak,” declared the Home Secretary, Mr Herbert Morrison, in giving a spring picture of the achievements of and the achievements now possible to Britain through the immense development of her Navy and her Air Force. Britain, he said, was near the limit of her manpower resources, but there was still room for improvement in organization and in the allocation of resources and these improvements were being made.

September, he said, had been a record month for the production of the two greatest classes of war products. After the holiday month of August, when the output had not been quite up to expectations, the output of warlike stores, practically everything but ships and aircraft, had risen by 14 per cent, in September and’ the weight of aircraft output had risen by 18 per cent. That meant that almost six tons of aircraft had been produced in September for every five tons produced in August. Both figures were higher than in any month since the war began.

Britain had the unique task of shipping overseas 80 per cent, of her war production and also every fighting man for whom shipping space could be found, said Mr Morrison. In addition Britain was receiving huge imports of materials and of American war equipment and foodstuffs. To achieve this the Navy’s ships had gone back and forth across the seas in a battle which if it did not have to be fought in secrecy, would grip the imagination and raise the hearts and spirits of the Allied peoples not less than the tremendous exploits of the Red Army.

In the Atlantic alone 250,000 men in escort ships were engaged in incessant warfare. Britain today was the centre of a round-the-world traffic in arms infinitely more dramatic than peacetime commerce. It was hard indeed for any land Power to realize fully the tremendous part sea-power still played in the conduct of the war or the high price the Admiralty had paid in blood, metal and treasure in the past three years. For instance, tanks and aircraft shipped from Britain to the Middle East had to be shipped round the Cape of Good Hope over a distance five times the length of the vast Russian Front. The Navy regularly patrolled 80,000 miles of trade routes and constantly kept guard over between 2000 and 3000 British and Allied merchantmen which were always at sea. The Navy with air support had escorted 120,000 voyages in convoy and had brought safely to port 199 in every 200 of the ships in these convoys.

It had at sea constantly 600 warships and auxiliaries. It had swept the enemy from the high seas and had destroyed, captured or damaged at least 125 of his warships and more than 6,000,000 tons of his shipping. Despite the advance in air-power the Navy, with the air-power which it was continually adding to itself, was every whit as powerful as British sea-power had ever been in the past. Though much had been heard of the speed and power of the modem land blitzkrieg the greatest example of the blitzkrieg yet seen was Japan’s blitzkrieg in the Pacific based on sea and air power combined. That breathtaking series of conquests was the writing on the wall for Britain’s enemies because it was the precursor and the portent of what British and American sea and air power would achieve when they were fully equipped.

STRUGGLE IN LIBYA Only by looking at world maps could anyone fully understand the meaning of the tremendous struggle in Libya, said Mr Morrison. For the Axis it was part of an attempt to seize Suez, one of the great world key points of land, sea and air power through which the Germans hoped to join hands with the Japanese. Britain’s hope was to throw Field-Marshal Rommel out of Africa. Such were the issues at stake in Egypt, limited thought the front now was on which they were being decided. Sea and air power was both the prize, and a condition of a United Nations’ victory in Egypt. Safeguarding Suez and reopening the Mediterranean would be the first great step towards that wider exercise of the full speed, fluidity and initiative of sea-power on which victory depended. “Some of us, in our rightful admiration of Russia and our wish to be associated more directly with her tremendous achievement, have come to think and talk as though Britain in the present phase of the war were playing only a marginal part,” he said. “This is a superficial and misguided view. When we look at the pattern of the war as a whole and remember the real meaning of the never-ceasing sea struggle we may realize that the role of Britain on the stage of the world conflict is as near the heart of achievement and the centre of action as ever it was in the days when we stood alone. AMERICAN PRODUCTION EXPANDS MORE MERCHANTMEN BUILT WASHINGTON, November 1. . The United States war production report for September has been issued by Mr Donald Nelson, America’s Wai' Production Chief. It shows these increases over August: — i Per cent. Aeroplanes 10 Ordnance 7 Naval and Army Vessels 22 Merchantmen 10 Miscellaneous munitions, which includes all other items, remained virtually unchanged. Over-all production in September was only 7 per cent, greater than production in August. Many engineering difficulties have been overcome and the training of new workers is proceeding well, but serious problems still confront industry in its rapid expansion. Foremost among these is the tight supply of raw materials. During September 12 major combat vessels were launched. While the construction of merchantmen increased 10 per cent, measured by the value of new construction in the shipyards, measured by the tonnage of the vessels delivered it increased by 34 per cent. Ninety-two

more merchantmen were placed in service, 21 more than in the previous top month, July. The deadweight tonnage of these vessels was 1,009,000, compared with 753,000 in August. Thus the production in the single month of September closely approached the total American merchant shipping output in the whole of 194 L