Facts, Figures

> The harder U.S. industry plugs at war orders, the harder it gets hit with new contracts. In April, production was $2.5 billion, but new contracts of $19 billion brought total unfilled war orders to $99 billion. At the April production rate, the U.S. has a 2 1/2-year backlog.

> Big retailers are choked with goods; New York City department-store inventories for April were 77% above last year, while sales showed only a 4% increase. To correct the maldistribution, WPB announced it would soon curtail both inventories and forward buying. Retailers, already jarred by price ceilings, were in a frenzy over a trial balloon "first draft" of the order. A department store that had hoarded too much in one department might be unable to restock in another unless it disgorged its oversupply. Overall cough-up, if that order should go through: 20-35% of current retail stocks.

> New price-ceiling jitters: the National Retail Grocers' Association estimated that a third of the U.S.'s 380,000 grocers will be squeezed out; Chicago men's clothing manufacturers laid off 10,000 tailors.

> As suddenly and silently as it had seized the plants of Brewster Aeronautical Corp. (TIME, May 4), the Navy last week returned them to private management. The new president: Charles A. Van Dusen, former production man at Consolidated Aircraft. The new board of directors: Van Dusen and seven eminently respectable bankers, railroaders and others.

> The desperate rubber shortage forced Borden's, Sheffield and other big distributors to agree on a plan for pooling milk routes in the New York City area. Deliveries will be cut to every other day.

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