The Eagle, Volume 2, Number 11, Thursday, July 15, 1943 Page: 1 of 4
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THE EAGLE
Official Publication of Consolidated Vultee AircraTt Corporation
Fort Worth, Texas, Division
Vol. 2, No. 11
Thursday, July 15, 1943
Fort Worth, Texas
SALUTE — These nine
Liberator bombers roared
across Convair’s plant
Saturday in honor of
British Chief Air Marshal
Sir Christopher Courtney.
Fuselage Nose
Wins Contest
Jumping from an "unlucky”
thirteenth position to first place for
the month of June in Convair’s
intra-plant Safety Contest, Fuselage
Nose topped a list of 18 depart-
ments reporting no lost-time acci-
dents, Safety Supervisor E. G. Mc-
Kinney announced today.
Runner-up is Will Rogers War
Training School, which won the
trophy for the two preceding
months.
The eight-ball award goes back
to Drop Hammer after a month’s
absence in Jigs and Fixtures. Fin-
ishing and Welding, both of which
completed two months without lost-
time accidents, stood just above
Drop Hammer.
Departments without lost-time
accidents during June were: Fuse-
lage Nose, Will Rogers War Train-
ing School, Plant Engineering,
Metal Bench, Pattern Shop, Cover-
ing and Upholstery, Miscellaneous
Parts, Draw Bench, Fuselage Sub-
assembly, Wing Sub-assembly, In-
tra-plant Transportation, Experi-
mental, Tubing, Heat Treat and
Anodize, B-32 Wing, Electric Spot
Welding, Field Operations, Garage.
Head of Treasury
Lauds Bond Effort
Too late for publication in last
week’s Eagle, a message from Treas-
ury Secretary Henry Morgenthau
Jr., congratulating Convair’s Fort
Worth plant on its outstanding War
Bond record was received by Divi-
sion Manager George J. Newman.
"I congratulate the company, all
its workers and such committees as
have helped to reach this highly pa-
triotic goal. Please express my
thanks to all who have helped,”
Morgenthau’s telegram said in part.
Earlier congratulatory messages
were received by State War Bond
Administrator Frank Scofield and
Tarrant County Chairman J. Lewell
Lafferty.
Former RAF Ferry
Pilot Meets Chief
During Tour Here
When Sir Christopher C.ourfr,ey>
British Air Chief Marshal and head
of the RAF, visited Convair’s Fort
Worth plant Saturday he found a
former member of his command,
Assistant Foreman Lannie Rice of
Yard and Flight.
Rice, who now prepares modi-
fied Liberators for test flights, for-
merly worked at the San Diego Di-
vision as a flight engineer, but left
to join the RAF Ferry Command
in April, 1941, as a Liberator piiot.
In England when. the United
States was attacked at Pearl Harbor,
he immediately returned to this
country and was sent to North
Africa as a B-24 technical repre-
sentative attached to the U. S. Army
Air Forces.
In the next few months, Rice’s
duties took him to India, China,
Iraq, Iran and finally back to Tu-
nisia. The strain of hard work and
the menace of unfamiliar climate
caused an illness which took 50
pounds from Lannie’s frame.
"During the time I ferried Lib-
erators to England and throughout
the period spent in the Middle East,
I learned that the planes we build
are the finest in the world,” Rice
said. "But one thing always irked
me. Newspaper reports invariably
referred to the bombers in North
Africa as Fortresses—they were all
B-24’s. Up until the time I left,
I had never seen a B-17 in that
area.”
Among Lannie’s "Short-Snorter”
collection is a bill signed by Cap-
tain Jack Ruggles, pilot of Prime
Minister Churchill’s Liberator, "The
Commando.” He is also a friend of
Captain Robert E. Perlick, veteran
RAF ferry pilot, who visited the
Fort Worth plant this week.
Tucson Officials Here
Walter Lawrence, Tucson Divi-
sion manager, and Glenn Hotchkiss,
factory manager and former assist-
ant to the factory manager in Fort
Worth, visited here Tuesday.
Safety Course
Opens Monday
Special instruction for members
of Convair’s S?fe ■; Committee in
classes of 25 each for both First and
Second shifts began Monday for the
second series of students, announced
Van A. France, industrial training
manager, today.
The five-day, two-week course in-
cludes at least one member of the
Safety Committee from each of the
plant’s 43 departments.
Topics covered by the daily 90-
minute sessions include first aid,
accident prevention, protective
equipment, and safe use of indus-
trial machines.
Instructors are Pat L. Davis, Fred
R. Temple and Curtis Gentry, Saf-
ety department; and R. E. Hedberg,
Training and Education department.
Liberator Is Termed
Most Successful In
Anti-Submarine War
™ £££? I?'24 £° st^owi
bays Woodhead
With the aid of long
range, four-engined Libera-
tor bombers, the United Na-
tions soon will be covering
the whole of the Atlantic in
constantly expanding anti-
submarine warfare, revealed
Sir Christopher Courtney,
British Air Chief Marshal
and head of the RAF, who
visited Convair’s Fort Worth
plant Saturday.
Inspecting the nation’s largest
American and British B-24 modifi-
cation center here, Courtney termed
Liberator Bomber Gets
Praise From All Fronts
Attention is focused on both
the performance and produc-
tion of ’VM T :L«rator Numb-
ers this week as public praise
comes from a half-dozen
sources. The British Air Chief
Marshal, two Ferry Command
pilots, the Senate’s Truman
Committee, President Harry
Woodhead, and the national
press with accounts of inva-
sion bombing hail the B-24
with marked approbation.
'
the Liberator the most successful of
all anti-submarine aircraft.
"We are pushing the corner, if we
haven’t turned it, in anti-subma-
rine warfare, and one of the major
(Continued on Page 2)
★ ★ ★
I m
FORMER COMMANDER—British Air Chief Marshal Sir Christopher
Courtney, right, stopped during his tour of Convair’s Fort Worth plant
Saturday to talk with Lannie Rice, former RAF Ferry Command pilot
and now assistant foreman in Yard and Flight. In the background is a
portion of the RAF insigne on the side of a modified Liberator.
Consolidated Vultee has reduced
the cost price of the B-24 Liberator
bomber to a point where it costs less
to build than any other large air-
plane, President. Harry Woodhead,
speaking before the Fort Worth
Chamber of Commerce, revealed last
week.
"In fact,” he added, "we are
building it more inexpensively than
some two-engined airplanes now in
production.”
Substantiating facts revealed ear-
lier to Convair employes, Wood-
head also announced that a new
model bomber, capable of carrying
a larger bomb load faster and far-
ther than the Liberator, and another
"very large airplane” will be built
by Convair’s Fort Worth Division.
If the war should end before this
latter airplane is completed, Wood-
head said, work will be continued
because it will be in demand for
the long range global flying which
will he douche icefuU.
to come. •
"I can assure you that y . have
one of the largest and finec*
craft plants in the world, bi
a permanent structure,” the Co va
president told Chamber memt s.
"It does not seem sensible, or prov-
able, that a plant of this kind, Wm.
a vast reservo, c of trained man-
power, should become inactive.”
He emphasized that the Fort
Worth plant is the only one in the
country of a size capable of produc-
ing the big airplanes now being en-
gineered and developed, but which
as yet have not been put into pro-
duction.
Demonstrating that Consolidated
Vultee is not profiteering at the ex-
pense of the war effort, Woodhead
stated that earnings of 'he Fort
Worth Division for 1942 amounted
to between $30,000 and $40,000
after payment of taxes
Convair Production
Lauded by Truman
"Production of giant four-mo-
tored B-24’s by Consolidated Vul-
tee has been excellent,” the Sen-
ate’s Truman Investigating Com-
mittee said Saturday in a report re-
leased from Washington.
The survey included all major
producers of heavy bombardment
aircraft and praised the efforts of
Convair and several other manufac-
turers in meeting requirements of
the Army Air Forces.
Plant Engineer Describes
Operation of Huge Plant
Operation and maintenance of
the world’s largest aircraft factory
was the subject discussed in a talk
given last week before the Nv.th
Fort Worth Kiwanis Club by
Frank C. Clayton, plant engineer of
Consolidated Vultee’s Fort Worth
Division.
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Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corporation. The Eagle, Volume 2, Number 11, Thursday, July 15, 1943, periodical, July 15, 1943; Fort Worth, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth777454/m1/1/?q=+date%3A1941-1945: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company, Fort Worth.