Mr. Hiroshito, the Emperor of Japan

CONTINUING OUR CORRESPONDENCE WITH HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY, Mr. Hirohito, the Emperor of Japan

In a way we would like to dedicate this issue of ARIZONA HIGHWAYS to you, because it pertains very much to you and your gangster playmates. We try to tell the story of Luke, Williams, Thunderbird and Falcon Fields in a few pictures and a few words, and we try to give an inkling, at least, of the fine young American, British and Chinese cadets training in those fields. And of the officers and soldiers who run those fields. And we hope it all causes you consternation and dismay. It isn't so much what we say in this issue that should confound you. Four training fields aren't much, but when you multiply the activities of these fields, as we show them in these pages, by the many, many training fields being operated by our Armed Forces in this country we almost feel sorry for you, Mr. H. Does that give you a royal pain in the royal bean? Aspirin can't cure it kid, aspirin can't cure it.

Yes, Mr. Hirohito, America is tying her destiny to a cannonball. This blundering old Democracy is stumbling right along, in the most "unstumbly," "unblundery," way imaginable. Ever hear of Willow Run? Isn't that a nice peaceful name? It reminds you of an old swimming hole and boys going barefooted in the summer time. Well, not long ago that is just what that name meant. And then one of the citizens in this old Democracy, a Mr. Henry Ford by name, thought it was time to get busy. He sent some engineers and some American laboring men down to Willow Run, and things started happening. They always do when Mr. Ford gets busy. What was Willow Run is now one of the greatest munition works in the world. Down the assembly lines are flowing a great fleet of bombers, day and night, in what is one of the greatest industrial enterprises Man ever conceived of. It's stupendous, colossal! (Do you go to the movies?) The very figures would make you dizzy. But that shows you what happens when American technical and engineering genius gets together with good American brawn. Inspiration and perspiration, so to speak. And how can you beat a combination like that, Mr. Hirohito? And speaking of this Mr. Ford, reminds us of a song they sang hereabouts a few years ago. Mr. Ford built a car we affectionately called the "tin lizzie." According to the song if something went wrong, "just wrap it up with wire and the little old Ford will ramble right along." Some people, huh!

There hasn't been much happening since we wrote you last. A few of our bombing boys dropped into your town and left a few highly explosive calling cards, and a few of your ships got kicked around a place called the Coral Sea, but, of course, you don't know about that by now. These Americans really get around, don't they? They're amazing people.

They're darned, tough customers, Mr. Hirohito, but then again they'll fool you. Not long ago a Japanese farmer in our Valley was supposed to have been filched out of several hundred dollars by a person acting as a governmental official, who promised this farmer certain protection for pay. When the story got out, all the folks we talked to were indignant about the affair, feeling that the farmer had been treated unjustly, and that if the other man were sent to prison it would serve him right. Can you feature that? One little Japanese farmer had the sympathy of most of the people in our community. Before this war is over, Mr. H., you'll find just how tough these Americans can be, but they're darn nice people, and that's their charm, their vigor and their might. Because we do not repay barbarism by barbarism, don't underestimate us. When you do that you'll make a bigger mistake than you did at Pearl Harbor, and that, Stinkie old boy, was the prime, the supreme, the most stupendous, the most gigantic, the most mammoth, the most colossal blunder of all . . .