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without established technique or method, a kind of war rooted in production in which we surpass. If we ourselves had chosen the kind of war to be fought, we could not have found one more suitable to our national genius. For this is a war of transport, of machines, of mass production, of flexibility, and of inventiveness, and in each of these fields we have been pioneers if not actual inventors.
    With the very techniques required for this war, our people explored a continent and peopled it and developed it, threw rails across it, drove highways north and south, burrowed for metals, and dammed rivers for power. And the energy and versatility and initiative which developed this continent have not died. Perhaps some of our difficulty before the beginning of this war was caused by the aliveness and the versatility and initiative without the goal.
    Even the tactics now used in Europe and in China are not new to us; guerrilla fighting, commando fighting, our fathers learned from the Indians 200 years ago and practiced for 200 years.
    Even the children playing in the vacant lots in America practice the tactics of the guerrilla and the commandos in their games, while speed, mechanics, and motors are almost born with them. In short, this is the kind of war that Americans are probably more capable of fighting and fighting better than any other people in the world.
    The goal has been set now and we have an aim and a direction, and a kind of fierce joy runs through the country. The President set an end in production that was almost beyond reason and that end is being reached. The General Staff designed an army like none in the world and that army is being assembled and trained.
    Ever since the end of the last war our more intelligent gener als have foreseen what power would lie in the hands of the nation with a great and well-trained Air Force. These leaders have advocated the building of a huge Air Force and the training of thousands of pilots. But as always, opposition to change arose against them. They were denied facilities and money and, in one case at least, actual persecution was used.
    It was only when Germany demonstrated so violently in Belgium, in Holland, in Norway, in Crete, how devastating air power could be, that this nation awakened to the fact that we must have a great Air Force. And we find now that what Germany accomplished in eight years, we must surpass in less than two. In many ways this challenge is good for us. We are building the greatest Air Force in the world and we are training, developing, and grouping the most highly selected body of young men in the country to operate it.
    The Air Force Training Commands are not making the mistake of trying to create a great Air Force with inferior products. Indeed, the physical and mental testing of applicants is so rigid that acceptance by the Air Force of a young man is proof that he is far above the normal in intelligence, in health, and in strength.
    The planes are rolling off the assembly line by the thousand now and the men to fly them are being trained by the thousand. Hundreds of new airfields are being marked out all over the country. Into the induction centers every day, come truckloads of young men to begin their training and testing. And because the training has been so rapid and so without precedent, because the Air Force is making its tradition as it goes, a number of myths and stories and misconceptions have gotten loosed in the country.

    “A single-stack steamer was sighted . . .”
    A good example of this kind of myth is the often-repeated statement that the life of an air gunner is twenty minutes. How such a figure could have been arrived at and on what basis and by what comparison is impossible to find out. One might as accurately say that the life of a pedestrian is fifteen minutes or that the life of a man crossing a street is a half hour. It is amazing how these irresponsible statements persist. If a pedestrian gets hit by a car or a gunner gets hit