Reappraisal

Most citizens concede that the Army probably knows more than the civilian does about the equipment needed to win a two-ocean war. But last week, as Army demands continued to mount, businessmen were stunned by the magnitude of the task ahead of them.

Steel requirements for the second quarter were set at 19.9 million tons. This was 24% more than the maximum of 16.1 million tons that steelmakers hoped to produce, providing their mills are not crippled by spring floods in the Pittsburgh districts, or by a strike in the coal mines.

The sudden flood of Army orders also washed all the complacency out of other metal markets. Tin, zinc and lead were all back on the critical-shortage list (along with lesser items like antimony, tungsten and cadmium). Metal men who had talked of plans to revive a little bit of production for civilian uses tossed many plans for the 4,200 spot reconversion programs out the window when WPB cut out their steel and copper allotments for the second quarter. The grim poverty of metals for war's uses had even shortened the supply for essential civilian production. Not even the railroads could get their barest needs: the Office of Defense Transportation request for 1.5 million tons of steel for badly needed new cars and rail was cut by one-third.

If the Army had made a true and accurate estimate of what was still needed, even as its troops reached the Rhine at week's end, then the U.S. was due for one more rude shock. The new orders meant that the entire program for war had been underestimated. To make up the deficit, the U.S. was going to have to put up with shortages, forget reconversion for a while, and work as hard as it had before it blithely decided that victory in Europe was already in the bag.

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