Mcallen Daily Press

CHIEF SAYS OUR PLANES ARE BETTER
Americans Lose But Three Planes in Burma While Downing 90-100 Enemy Aircraft

WASHINGTON, Jan. 23—(UP)—American air forces defending the Burma Road have lost only three planes and three men since Dec. 7 but have shot down between 90 and 100 Japanese planes, Lieut. Gen. Henry H. Arnold told congress in testimony before the house appropriations committee made public today.

Arnold reported that American planes are outfighting Axis planes on the Russian, African and Far Eastern fronts.

The United States, he said, does not have "to apologize to anybody in the world for the type of airplanes we are producing."

He also reported that:

1. A squadron of American P-40D fighters (Curtiss Kitty Hawks) met a numerically superior force of Axis planes including two German Messerschmitt 109F's in two engagements, destroyed 13 enemy planes and lost one. The 109's were two series more modern than the P-40's. Both types have been made in seven series down to F.

2. At Hawaii on Dec. 7, American fighters that got into the air acquitted themselves in an excellent manner against Japanese attackers.

3. On the Russian front early this month, four American-made Tomahawk fighters were reported to have shot down eight Messerschmitts supporting German ground forces.

4. On an undisclosed front, American P-40s—outnumbered eight to one by German planes—destroyed 60 per cent of the enemy force.

"We are now getting both quality and quantity," Arnold assured the committee.

Arnold testified on a $12,500,000,000 appropriation for the Army and Navy which includes money for expanding the Army Air Force by 33,000 planes, 23,000 of them combat planes.

Examination of German planes shot down in Africa, he said, showed that they were still being manufactured "from the best materials and with the best workmanship."

Reference by the senate defense investigating committee to "piddling changes" ordered by the Army in plane carburetors with a resulting delay in production brought a sharp reply from Arnold.

See CHIEF Page 3