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Last week the cautious State Department was arguing with usually cautious Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau, who was eager to freeze all German and Italian funds in the U. S. He pointed out: 1) all U. S. funds in Germany and Italy are already frozen in effect by currency controls, 2) freezing of Axis funds would also freeze the influx of funds for sabotage, espionage and propaganda, since all embassies and consulates would have to specify their expenses. At week's end it looked as if action would follow soon. For the sake of "neutrality" British funds might be frozen too (but withdrawals freely allowed for arms purchases).
Lean-hipped, mild General George C. Marshall showed the Administration's intentions by taking steps to release to England the right to prior purchase of 46 of the most powerful flying battleships now under construction: 26 four-engined B-24s (Consolidated Aircraft's heavy bombers), 20 four-engined B-17Cs (Boeing Flying Fortresses). All are to be equipped with Sperry bomb sights, the U. S. military secret, supposedly able to land a bomb in a flowerpot from 30,000 feet. Retained, noted both General Marshall and the President, was the Norden bomb sight, which has made the Sperry obsolete.
The statistics made good reading to all Hitler-haters—Consolidated: weight, 20 tons; cruising range, 1,500-mile radius; speed, 300 m.p.h.; crew, nine; wing span, 110 ft.; engines, four 1,200-h.p. Pratt & Whitneys; bomb load, maximum five tons. Boeing: weight, 22 tons; cruising range, 1,500-mile radius; speed, 280 m.p.h.; crew, nine; wing span, 110 ft.; engines, four 1,200-h.p. Wright Cyclones; bomb load, maximum five and a half tons.
In return for giving Britain priority on the bombers, Britain was to help the U. S. 1) through a production bottleneck by turning over to the Army enough engines to equip 41 Flying Fortress-type bombers, 2) by granting facilities to U. S. Army observers to watch American-made bombers perform in combat flight over the British Isles. If big bombers are to be sent to Britain this year, it did not seem likely that they would be withheld next year—even if the U. S. has to lend Britain the money to buy them.