Somebody slipped up in planning ahead for the production of heavy-duty tires. This was made plain last week as 1) the Army, which unexpectedly hiked its tire needs from 16.4 million to 26.8 million a year, found that it will get far fewer; 2) the quota for civilian truckers was cut almost 50% under ODT's "bare minimum" for the first quarter of 1945.
The Army explained that tires in service abroad are wearing out faster than expected. As heavy-tire production is already behind schedule (TIME, Aug. 21). WPB must dip into the civilian supply (many military and civilian tires are the...