of Governor Herbert R. O'Conor 601

If the worst should come to pass, and Maryland communities should begin
to feel the horror of enemy bombing, we at least will not be taken unawares.
We shall be prepared to endure the ordeal with as little losses through injury
or other causes as through preparedness can insure. This isn't to say that
the job is complete. By no means is this so. Your County Defense Chairman
still needs volunteers and plenty of them. There isn't a county in the State
that can't use men or women for practically everyone of its important defense
functions.

And I am here to say that there never was a more direct obligation laid
upon the conscience of any American citizen than the duty now upon our people
with regard to this vital need of Civilian Defense.

Fortunate for us it is that, in addition to the efforts put forth within the
State, the Federal Government is prepared to afford us the utmost protection
against attack of any nature. It can be said that, as we meet today troops are
stationed at points along the Eastern Shore. While their particular missions
are part of the general defense plan, and, therefore, of course, are not to be
divulged, we know from military headquarters that the two service branches
have established a closely coordinated defensive and offensive network system
to protect America's Eastern Seaboard from attack.

Land, sea and air patrols for the detection and repulse of hostile forces
are jointly directed by a command group of top-ranking Army, Navy and Air
Force officers. Through elaborately prepared methods of liasion, these officers
are available to each other twenty-four hours a day. The forces under them
can swing into unified action within a matter of seconds after the receipt of an
alert, or after the report of activity of enemy forces along the Coast. Details
of the plan must still continue to be secret. It must be a comforting thought,
however, to all the people of the Eastern Shore of our State, to know that this
close and continuous cooperation between all defending forces is working night
and day to protect them.

Keeping step with the patriotic tempo of our people, both with regard to
service in the armed forces and in the field of Civilian Defense, is the third
great branch of Maryland's defensive effort, our war industries. Our people
do not begin to realize fully the tremendous contribution being made by Mary-
land to the general pattern of National Defense preparedness. To say that
Maryland industrial accomplishments are far out of proportion to our relative
size among the states, is putting it very mildly, indeed. Through our great
airplane, shipbuilding and steel plants; through our explosive and chemical
and other vital defense industries; through bur agricultural and farming en-
terprises, we are accomplishing mightily in the interest of that service of
supply which in the final analysis will mean victory in this struggle-to-the
death.

Maryland planes are in action on many fronts; Maryland ships are carrying
the product of Maryland and of other states to the widely scattered bases of
American and Allied forces throughout the world. Maryland steel is sheathing