Conquer by the Clock

In war as in peace, carelessness costs lives. But today the results of carelessness and of negligence are a thousand tiir.es more tragic. This film drives home the fact that there is little difference, as far as results are concerned, between the patriotic but thoughtless American and the Axis saboteur. A girl inspecting rifle cartridges in a war plant— a patriotic American — takes time for an extra smoke, neglects to fill her place on the inspection line, and thus allows several boxes of uninspected cartridges to pass as O.K. One cartridge is a dud and the film shows vividly how it causes an American soldier somewhere in the South Pacific to lose his life. Another patriotic American, a businessman, takes Saturday afternoon off to go to a ball game and fails to leave instructions with his secretary. Through his negligence, lifeboat supplies do not reach a convoy sailing for England. After their ship is torpedoed, six American airmen drift twenty-five days in a lifeboat scantily provisioned. Five of the men lose their lives; the sixth, his mind.