Behind him Ribe heard the general give the order to stand down and drop shields.

The department had initially said orders dropped 5.4 percent in January.

At the end of the war the company's orders dropped from £5 million in 1944/5 to only £263,000 in 1946.

New orders for public works projects received by the four companies last year dropped by more than a third.

Military orders dropped 15.7 percent, to $5.4 billion, the report also showed.

With Japan's economic slump, orders received by the top 50 construction companies have dropped three years in a row.

Soviet orders, which had averaged 600 streetcars a year, have dropped to about 200.

Last month, total foreign orders dropped 8.7 percent, to $34.3 million, compared with June's.

Meanwhile, orders from foreign customers - which have been strong throughout the year - dropped 42.9 percent in the month.

Machine-tool orders dropped 27.1 percent in December, an industry group reported.