Word: panama
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...Canal Zone is a place to be defended, as well as a base from which to direct air and naval operations over the Caribbean area. Commander of the Panama Canal Department is tall, resplendent Lieut. General Daniel Van Voorhis. He also heads the whole Caribbean Defense Command, which up to now has existed principally on paper. In December 1940, when the War Department was straining every nerve to put the Canal Zone on a war footing, General Van Voorhis had the following important order distributed: "New transportation is arriving in the Department covered with dull finish O.D. paint. In order...
...present defenses are nothing to brag about. This condition does not worry Army people on the spot as much as might be expected. They know that the vulnerable Canal and the narrow Isthmus of Panama have inherent defense limitations which no amount of badly needed antiaircraft equipment or planes can wholly overcome. The only sure defense of the Canal is at a distance: by ship, by plane, by economic, political and diplomatic alliance with the countries of nearby Latin America and by occupation or neutralization of the bases from which an enemy might attack. The U.S. now lacks those outward...
...more than 7,000,000 tons of coast-to-coast freight moved via the Panama Canal. Chief west-to-east items are lumber and wood pulp, canned goods, gasoline and fuel oil. From east to west the big items are steel and manufactured goods. Rail rates are from two to four times higher than water rates. On some bulk commodities this difference could add 25% to 50% to delivered cost. Recently this margin has narrowed, for many shipping rates have increased, while the railroad rates have...
Last week, as the U.S. sped work on its Caribbean rampart, from Bermuda to British Guiana, the U.S. Navy was busy on further defenses to the Panama Canal. While the first U.S. draft of soldiers for the Lend-Lease base in Bermuda shoved off from Brooklyn, Rear Admiral Frank H. Sadler, commanding the Fifteenth (Canal Zone) Naval District, told newsmen of growing dumps of supplies and equipment at Balboa, the great naval base on the Pacific side of the Panama Canal...
Because the Government is considering a plan to draft seaworthy vessels out of intercoastal trade to meet the growing shortage in ocean shipping, the railroads last week were in a fair way to get back most of the freight they lost to the Panama Canal. But the carriers-already pressed for freight cars by the defense boom-had good cause to be frightened as well as pleased...