Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 21 July 1941 — Page 9

MONDAY, JULY 2I, 1941

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DENVER, Colo. July 21.—This is to be a dissertation upon Mr. Lucius Beebe, the gentleman from New ‘York who epitomizes the ultimate in clothes, wine, and the social exactitudes of the upper crust. In other words Mr. Beebe, ‘through his column in The New York Herald-Tribune has Limself in person come to stand for all that jis correct in “the world of high society. He is further, I believe, officially listed as one of America’s 10 bestdressed men. : And with that background, incongruous as it may seem, Mr. Beebe has become one of the traditions of the Central City Play Festival way out here in the wild .and woolly West, He hasn’t missed an opening . for eight years. He has become a fixture. He comes merely because he enjoys it. He takes'no part in the festival, and doubtless they could open it successfully without him, but I guess that after all these years:they’d feel pretty lonely. This year Mr. Beebe came out a few ddys ahead of festival time, and we were staying at the same _ hotel in Denver so I phoned up and asked him to eat breakfast with me. To tell the truth, I was scared to death of meeting Mr, Beebe. Anybody who is so socially perfect that it makes him famous Las me buffaloed right from the start. But Mr. Beebe is all right. He is quite easy and makes a good deal of fun of himself, . and laughs a lot, and we now call each other by our first names. Mr. Beebe had mountain trout for breakfast. I was still @ little overawed and tongue-tied, so he had to carry the bulk of hte conversation. We talked mostly about railroads and whisky. Both are hobbies of Mr. Beebe’s,

‘A Railroad Fan -

Several years ago he wrote a book about his native city of Boston. The best thing in it was his chapter on railroads. That's what turned him into a railroad fan. He has since written two books about railroads, and is now on his third. Mr. Beebe says all railroad fans are insane. He says they're divided into a dozen separate groups, such as narrow-gauge fans, steam-engine fans, Diesel

fans, live-photography fans, still-photography fans,

and so on. He says they all hate each other and a fan of one group won't speak to a fan of another group. He says a live-photography fan wouldn't be . caught dead taking a picture of an engine that was standing still. d Mr. Beebe belongs to the live-photography group. He came out here ahead of time to take railroad pic-

By Ernie Pyle

tures for his new book. An hour after we had eaten breakfast, with Mr. Beebe dressed fit to kill, he was out in the yards in old clothes taking pictures. He says the Denver & Rio Grande is the most interesting railroad from a photographer’s viewpoint. And St. Louis is the best place to get a great concentration of trains in the yards. He doesn’t know about Chicago, because he never seems to get beyond the first barroom in Chicago. Which brings us to whisky. Mr. Beebe talks constantly about his praclivities for drinking. He doesn’t apologize. He does it after the manner of a man who figures you've probably heard about his fine bad reputation, so he just dwells gaily upon it. The first day Mr. Beebe was in Denger, he got a beautiful red sunburn. “But that won't do any good,” he said. “The boys in New York will swear it'is only a whisky flush, They always contend when I come back from a trip that I've actually been in a barroom on Upper Broadway all the time. I have to take back souvenirs such as menus and hotel towels to prove I've been away.” If Beebe drinks as much as he says he does, then he must have had Physique No. 1 to begin with, because he looks mighty hale and hearty. He's tali and built like an All-American. . Further, he is an early riser for a fellow with such confirmed city habits. He is usually up around 7. He does all-his work in the morning, because he has to start drinking in the afternoon. And unlike newspapermen of fiction, he can't write a line after he’s had a drink. Beebe’s great pleasure in coming out once a year to the great open spaces seems odd, for he is not a mer w cares for the country. He is completely urban.

Snobbery Just Business

His ideal home is a hotel in midtown New York, and that's where he lives. He doesn't even like to go to Fire Island for week-ends. He is extremely allergic to all such rural joys as rocks, poison ivy, fences and COW noises. > : He goes out to Los Angeles about once a year, but likes San Francisco better. I asked him if he was bothered by celebrity-chasers when he traveled around the country. : . He laughed a definite, sardonic negative. “Nobody wants to talk to me,” he said. Beebe is used to having pokes taken at him for being the public’s idea of the perfect snob. But he can take it. That's his professional role and it's good for business. And he isn’t that way at all in person— in fact, he often seems to be a little embarrassed and ill at ease. I agree with the sentiment I heard expressad around Central City a score of times, to wit: “Beebe’s a damn nice guy.” :

Inside Indianapolis (4nd “Our Town)

SPEEDWAY CITY'S a far cry from a “nine o'clock town” these days, what with all the defense

activity going on. Drive out W. 16th St. one of these nights and see for yourself. After you leave the Indianapolis. business district, things are pretty dark : until you get right up to Speedway City. There the contrast is startling. The whole town seems ablaze with lights. There's a glow from the big Allison plants, which work the clock ‘round; from the Prest-O-Lite plant, Esterline-Angus, and even from the Speedway Lumber Co. Even the groceries stay open nights. : Traffic usually is jammed up, particularly . when the shifts . change at Allison. There's also a jam-up usually in the vicinity of “the taverns and all-night eating places, with their pinball machines and juke boxes. Altogether, it’s reminiscent of a minjature Shrine convention.

Around the Town

A DOUBLE FILE of soldiers—-10 or 12 of them— in uniforms that didn’t fit very well and with blue duffle bags over their shoulders trudged across Washington St. at Illinois, against the red light. Not a motorist blew his horn in outraged anguish, or tried to make them jump out of their shoes. “They ought to equip all us pedestrians with uniforms,” remarked

Washingtoi WASHINGTON, July 21.—Considerable difference of opinion exists between OPM and some of the other Presidential advisers over the question of more rapid curtailment of automobile production. OPM has asked the automobile industry to cut production 20 per cent below the current model year, which ends July 30. That scarcely constitutes any cut at all below normal. production because 1941 has been an abnormally high year. The present contemplated cut would allow the manufacture of 4,200,000 cars in the year beginning Aug. 1. England is not producing a single passenger automobile now. William S Knudsen has told the automobile industry that actually it will not be able to produce anything like 4,200,000 cars because materials will run short. In other words, OPM policy -is to stand on the 20 per cent cut and trust to actual shortages to reduce production still further, automatically. Since the automobile industry competes with defensqa for many materials, the automatic cut, it is figured in OPM, will be large, although .no one knows how large.

Orders Not Placed

~ However, other Presidential advisers regard this hit-and-miss system as totally inadequate. Therefore, Price Administrator Henderson has asked for a 50 per cent cut. ‘The War Department has just obtained another 10-billion-dollar appropriation, is now asking for another four billion and will later on have a slice of a new lend-lease appropriation which is on the way. The War Department has unlimited authority to order as much equipment for the armored force as it believes needed. Tomorrow the War Department can order as many tanks, scout cars and other blitzkrieg equipment as the automobile industry can produce. Why, asks OPM, does not the War Department go ahead and push these orders into the automobile industry and thus obtain its 50 per cent cut? The War Department attitude has been that orders

My Day

HYDE PARK, Sunday.—I flew quite comfortably to Auburn, N, Y,, on Friday in a little seaplane which landed on Owasco Lake. As we looked down, there seemed to be no possible way of getting up to the dock, but we finally saw an open lane and taxied in quite easily. From 11 o’clock on, the day was busy. Mr. Aubrey Williams was there and together we visited the NYA grounds, buildings and. shops. The plant is certainly ‘a good ‘one, but the best-of plants will mean little unless the boys have the right spirit. The head of the council, who was my guide, came down from Middletown, N. Y., and seemed to be a fine young man well pped to fill his position as leader. The ‘girls’ resident project is ; situated in a delightful house with ample grounds. boys’, which makes it possible for the girls to take part of their training in the kitchen and dining room of the boys’ project. The boys work here in three shifts, so the meals have to be served here Tom 3 ok in the morning through until 11 o’clogk a . .

her two sons, I put off going in for my second

It is not very far away from the:

a spectator. . . . Patrolman Thomas McCormick, off duty three months because of a serious operation, is back on the job. Until he gets in shape for squad car duty again, he’s doing a little detective work, running down motorists who ignore traffic sticker warnings. . . . John’ Ruckelshaus is vacationing in northern Michigan. . . . Dr. Frederic E. Crum writes in to chide us for our reference the other day to a “chivaree” on Monument Circle. The word, he suggests, is “charivari.” “It amused me,” he writes, “for I remember that I made the same mistake in a spelling bee in the Fifth Grade of common school.” Ouch!

Squirrel , Migration

A. E. ANDREWS, editor of Outdoor Indiana, is just short of dead certain that there’s an interesting migration of wild life now going on in Indiana, mostly due to the improved highway system, especially the gravel shoulders. He is almost sure that the 13-striped ground squirrel {(Citellus-tri-decem-lineatus), usually misidentified as a gopher, is moving southward. This animal has always been a prairie: animal and likes To dig in loose soil or gravel. Mr. Andrews has sighted these animals south of the prairies of northern Indiana and believes they follow the highways, digging as they go in the gravel highway shoulders.

The New Schricker Appointee

a HOWARD PATREM. Indianapolis Republican appointed to the Indiana School for the Blind, board of trustees by Governor Schricker. operates the concession stand in the Federal Building lobby.

By Raymond Clapper

must not be piled on too heavily or industry would be smothered as a fire is smothered when too much wood is loaded on. That isn’t quite consistent with what the War Department has done, because it has loaded some of the big established producers with backlogs that will be many months clearing up, while it has neglected to distribute orders for conversion of peacetime factories to the extent that many in OPM believe should be done. : Well, we are getting into a good deal of buck passing here. And some of the President’s advisers believe there should be an end to this shuffling. They urge a decisive, clear-cut, plafined policy. Only by such a firm, planned policy can rapid conversion of automobile production to defense production be brought about with a minimum of unemployment and dislocation, some of these advisers believe.

The Labor Attitude .

ORM officials are fearful that a drastic cut would throw men out of work and lead to parades of the unemployed ‘protesting that defense has taken their jobs from them. Labor unions ask only that the sub-

stitution of defense work for automobile production be done under an efficient program which would avoid transitional unemployment. The C. I. O. fought for the Reuther plan to convert automobile production to defense work but it was opposed by OPM. Every department concerned with defense is talking about the need for cutting automobile production. Even automobile manufacturers would be relieved to have the uncertainty ended by a clear-cut decision so they might plan ahead. } The Henderson order would provide a graduated reduction of 20 per cent for the first three months and then 50 per cent. This would cut down to one-half of the production in the normal 1940 year, by graduated steps that would give time for substitution of defense orders to minimize unemployment and dislocation. - in The need for employing the labor, productive capacity, raw materials and inventive genius of the automobile industry for defense is obvious. Some of those around the President do not believe it will happen unless the Government makes a clear-cut decision that would bring it about. .

By Eleanor Roosevelt

training centers in the state, and I am very happy to have had a part in its dedication. : We flew home and were ip a fog the last part of the way, so I was surprised When we came, down to find that we had actually reached Poughkeepsie, though we had not seen tlle ground for some time. I was home at my cottage for an-8 o'clock supper.’ Yesterday we had a belated birthday party for, my brother. He has a great many warm friends and they gathered together here from as far West as St. Louis, Mo. Mr. and Mrs. George Bye and Mr. and Mrs. Robert Deans were responsible for some very original entertainment including the importation of the Gay Nineties Quartet. All of our guests were gone by 4:30, but since I ‘was expecting my cousin, Mrs. Hall Rathbone, and

until their arrival. The weather was cool and clear] yesterday afternoon and I could almost feel a suggestion of autumn as we sat out on the porch in the evening. I know, however, that this is a little premature and that by next week I shall be groaning about the heat. : We had quite a large picnic lunch today, at which the group gathered together violated all the rules that I was taught Yn my youth. We had a good time as a group, and yet none of us knew beforehand whether we had anything in common or not, :

Trans Fleet's Test

Shows Men

Count Most

(This is the seventh of a series of articles on Mr. Casey's war experienees.)

ht. 1941, b The Indianapolis Times Copysig The +4 iv News. Ine.

Chicago Da

LITTLE BY LITTLE you get to understand that the Mediterranean Fleet took a pretty bad pounding at Crete—three cruisers, four destroyers, a quantity of

auxiliary craft. You hear that a couple of battleships stood up ‘for hours in a fight with: the Heinkels virtually without help from the ships designated to protect them. And meager ‘as are the details’ of this engagement, they lead to a belief that it may one day class

among the great naval battles of -

history. ~ It was the first definite, unqualified test between big ships and diving airplanes, and for the moment at any rate, the evidence seems to indicate that the big ships won. : They were damaged, to what extent the reports do not say. But if you talk about the matter with navakexperts they all point out that despite losses the fleet's mission was accomplished, the garrison of Crete was evacuated with a percentage of casualties that seems to have been satisfactory to the Middle East Com-

mand.

That Hitler took Crete, they say, is not conclusive inasmuch as the Mediterranean squadron lacked proper support from airplanes. You leave it at that, as you once left the Battle of Jutland . and other encounters that never got themselves properly classified. , . . After all, as your memory goes hack to theharbor at Ras El Tine and the deadly traps of the broad blue water to the west, it seems that ships don’t count for much—they are just ships and you can make a lot more of them if you have to. It’s the men who counted with - the Mediterranean Fleet. They still do—those of them who are alive. ” 8 ”

Casey Feels Conspicuous

THERE WAS A DAY when we went down to Alexandria and paraded our charm in front of the Admiralty representatives and presently were ferried out to a battleship and into a new and possibly cockeyed world.. There were two of us. W. F. Hartin of the London Daily Mail was the other one. Aboard we found another outlander in the person of Comm. Hartman, United States naval observer. The commander, of course, fitted in perfectly with the scenery even if everything from the fire control bridge to the keel bore a label different from that of its counterpart in the American Navy. Hartin and I were the only landlubbers aboard and our bright new desert uniforms made us feel no more conspicuous than if we had been wearing ballet costumes. We didn’t know where we were going. Once we had been ordered to bring our suitcases to Ras El Tine we knew that the fleet was going out, and that was all. . . .'We_had hopes that we might be on our way to bombard Tripoli or Genoa or that we might be headed for some new lair of the unwary Italian Navy. But as we pulled out into the Mediterranean, the loudspeaker system, which for its vocal idiosyncracies had been christened Donald Duck, informed us that we had business in Crete. We were going to help to land some troops there. . . . Crete! I remember that we discussed reasons for landing of the troops. We figured out that Britain must be planning some help for the Greeks. Somebody said that Crete would make a very nice jumping off place for airplanes and a jolly good idea, too, what with German planes coming down in large numbers ‘to bolster up the eye-ties in what they still held of North Africa.

# ” 8 Ships Magnificent. IT WAS AWESOMELY beautiful, this matter-of-fact departure of the fleet on a routine errand. . . . Magnificent the scythe-like sweep of the big boats as they came into line one after one on

leaving the harbor—magnificent

despite the panoply of 15-inch guns, entirely dissociated with any’ of our old ideas of death. All was so still that we seemed hardly to be moving. I, standing out of the wind on the quarter deck, - wouldn't have believed that there was a soul above decks until I. looked around at the great masses of armor plate above me. . . . Every rail was massed with sailors, every gun position filled with them — hundreds of them, each doing his job without fuss or feathers, apparently without command. . - : It is difficult to express one's reactions to all of this. It was something like watching a symphony orchestra that you couldn’t hear—a symphony orchestra of a thousand or more pieces. Less poetically it was a demonstration: of efficiency such as we hadn't seen for many a long day—an efficiency that no land army could ever hope to equal. . ~The ship was not new, but she had been entirely - reconditioned, and recently, as any one who looked at her armament could easily tell. Among other artillery she carried six batteries of 4.7 anti-aircraft rifles, and she bristled with pompoms like a 35,000-ton porcupine. All her fittings inside and out were fashioned of steel and bare pipe, but she was a comfortable boat.” The wardroom was

spacious

. matter.

“Across the sun and ahead of an aircraft carrier comes a Fulmer.”

tities of deep leather chairs. The cabins had everything you'd expect to find aboard a luxury liner. All the baths aboard, however, were tub. Somebody said this was because they didn’t know anything about shower baths when Nelson was running the Navy. Into the wardroom, that day and the next and the day after, the officers came from time to tifne ‘as men might drop into a club after .a spot of work. They talked of shoes and sealing wax, but seldom of ships. How had we left things in London? Was the United States likely to come into the war? Was there any talk in ‘Cairo about an improved mail service? Was anybody ever going to knock out Joe Louis? What did Benghazi look like? .

” » u

Dive-Bombers? So What?

THEY WERE SPEEDING into trouble at a good fast clip and, out of considerable experience with dive-bombers, they knew how -serious the trouble might turn out to be. But you'd never know that from the mess conversations or from the routine amusements of several sunny, dreamy afternoons. They got up a chess tournament and a bridge drive and a shovehapenny contest. The only features: lacking from a program that - might have done for any Mediterranean cruise were deck tennis and shuffleboard. The major of marines lent hilarity to the chess competition. He played his patch with an instruction book open in front of him and bleated loudly when his opponent failed to meet his moves as the book indicated they might be met. A young lieutenant played the piano a bit that first evening out. He had a professional finish which was dissected and examined conversationally by a lot of critics. who also had a professional finish. There was considerable argument over a lot of “new” books which had reached the Middle East a year late. There was plenty of observation about the pontifical attitude of London ,newspapers on local politics. The atmosphere of the place and the people who filled it was bright, intelligent, realistic, gay. . . . “Just before the battle, Mother.” .. . There aren't any accommodations for visiting firemen on battleships in wartime. (In Nelson’s day apparently reporters were content to stay ashore and a jolly good idea it was.) But no I got the navigating officer's cabin. He didn’t need it, he said. When at sea he always slept in the chart room. He came in about 8 p. m. and apologized for using his own washstand. ye. 8

‘Donald Duck’ Cheerful

ONE OF THE things that made this brave new world completely fantastic to a newcomer from out of the Middle East Command was the frankness of everybody. There wasn’t anything mysterious about this voyage. You were kept informed about it by Donald Duck. If all was going: well, Donald mingled jokes with his announcements. If trouble was near at hand he was serious and direct. But you never wanted for detail. You—as well as everybody else aboard the ship—knew just about as much of what was going on as the captain did. “Anti - aircraft action stations close up,” came this raucous voice on the third day. ‘Aircraft presumed to be ‘enemy about five miles off starboard quarter. . ..” That was the beginning of it. It was a jittery day, that , . .

“chart to realize that this was a dangerous business—running big

targets’ around on this part of the ~

blue ocean—hourly we were getting closer to Tripoli where the Germans had established new bases and to the boot of Italy whence various annoyances had been wont to come in the days of Balbo. We slipped, fortunately, into a fog that hid the cliffs where Icarus had conducted his experiment in aviation. We rode about at reduced speed while the convoy went up and the visiting troops went up to the cave of the Minotaur to await the Germans. We turned about for home sometime after sunset. It was a peaceful night with no interruptions until— In the morning at about 6 o'clock, Donald Duck broke out with “Wakee! Wakee! Wakee! Ivo! Ivo! Ivo! Stack and stow” — (it wasn't until a long time afterward that I identified “Ivo! with “Heave-ho! Heave-ho!”). “Anti-aircraft attack stations may be required presently,” said Donald Duck politely. After that we had numerous worries. The Chinese magician in the control room kept sensing the planes that we could not see. At

ress was reported and after a

eas intervals their prog-

“« .,..a long string of guns waving in unison like gigantic reeds.”

so far as the passengers were concerned. In the world we had left you never had to worry about airplanes until they got around where you could see them and the alert gave you notice. There, by some modern ju-ju, the lads in the conning tower knew all about planes: that they couldn't see— where they were, what direction they were going, how many of: them there were. You felt somehow as if the air was crammed with all sorts of evil influences. A lot of the gun crews seemed to feel that, too, for throughout the iong afternoon they were seldom away from their posts. “Maybe the planes are only ‘shadows,’ ” Hartin said. He had been out with the fleet before and was acquainted with shadows. “They’re really scout planes,” he said. “But I could never tell you what good they are. They try to pick up the fleet and when they do they fly along the horizon to find out where it is going. They have to carry an extra load of gas and because of that they aren't very heavily armed. Once our observers spot them they ‘are as good as gone. I don't think any of them ever get back to their home ports—the record is just about 100 per cent. After a while you get to feel a little sorry for them. ...”

Planes Peril Big Targets

BUT THESE PLANES weren't “shadows.” In the first place,’ there were too many of them. In the second place, their movements as reported by Donald Duck from time to time were. too erratic. One might judge that while the fleet was aware of them they were not yet aware of the fleet. Late in the afternoon they went away somewhere. We proceeded with little or no worry about them, for Crete. You didn’t have to look at the

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while it seemed impossible that “they should continue to overlook us.

” ” » Planes 5 Miles Astern!

ALONG ABOUT 3 o'clock there was a rush of feet on the iron stairs near my bunk. Somewhere in the ship a bugle was blowing. I got on deck just as the annunciator was telling about a squadron of “aircraft presumed hostile about five miles astern.” , , . Five miles astern and on a day like this. There was some gunfire off our port bow. When I got up to an observation post under the bridge you could just see traces of a cruiser that had gone over the horizon. Nobody seemed disturbed about the situation — which, after all, was no more than right. . . . This was a battleship and I could remember when people used to feel safe in an Anderson shelter with an eighth-of-an-inch of corrugated iron over them. The day was sunny with an opal haze about 20,000 feet. The sky was the usual Mediterranean color plus, I suppose, a little mixture of desert dust and sand. The sea was a deep cobalt, strewn from horizon to horizon with waving white feathers. Out on the horizon the destroyers were dipping their beam ends : and there wasn't any doubt that a pretty stiff gale was blowing. . « . In the midst of the news that a visitation was shortly to drop out of the sky, our ship was apparently as unconcerned and unexciting a place as an Erie coal barge. Water was breaking over the bows and covering the gun turrets below the bridge with a sort of continuous rainbow. The screaming wind was trying to take your clothes off whenever you turned a corner or whenever — as it did every couple of minutes — the big ship changed her course. But save when the wind came into the quarter there was no roll at all—virtually no sense of motion. But there was no overlooking the weird scéne on the deck. Here, in one little snuggery I had found near the metearologist’s coop there were about 24 officers and men all cowled with white hoods that fitted like medieval chainmail and somehow suggested the head dress of 15th Century nunneries. . . . Asbestos hoods, these, anti-blast protection. A lieutenant explained that drafts carried the flames of bombs hundreds of feet along corridors. It was worse between decks, he said. EJ ” o

Zoom Out of the Sun

“THEY'LL COME out of the sun when they come,” you heard the voice of the commander. Then you heard the roar. of the signal sergeant calling for flags by odd

names “George . . . Admiral . . . Mary!” (and the like.) “Up!” (the string of colored bunting goes up onto the mast) “Down!” or “Watch the wind!” Donald Duck announced, “We hear that one of the enemy aircraft has been sent down by our fighters. .....” Then there is a sound of airplanes overhead. Across the sun and ahead of the aircraft carrier comes a Fulmer. . “Out of ammunition,” says someone at the door of the signal station. The blinkers begin to snap along the deck. There are answers from the flagship, now festooned with flags like a street carnival. The fleet makes a great stately turn about into the wind. One after another, a few seconds apart, some of the Swordfish biplanes leap off the carrier into the sunny air. Frail, bright little things they seem—and slow. The Fulmer which has been circling overhead lets down his wheels and 1 After him come two more Three more Swordfish

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2—-Dutch quarter is a

its normal course and for a while the deck is silent. Then they come back again— high in the blue—trailing ribbons of curly vapor to the far horizon, You don't have to be told what is going on. The battle has bes gun. A bomb drops somewhere astern. A Heinkel comes scream= ing out of the sky. Another bomb threw up a jet of white water near

the aircraft carrier, after which -

the ack-ack turns loose—all the ack-ack of the fleet, but most of all the batteries of our battleships, an incr dredfold by the drum-like sounds ing board of the steel hull. The air seemed to have been shattered into solid, spiny pieces which one's ears tried vainly to sort out. The sea was bubbling with tall geysers and more than once with irridescent oily patches where the German planes had disappeared at the end of a streak

of flame. # o »

100 Pom-Poms Scream

BELOW THE CONNING, tower was another weird sight, a long string of 45's waving in unison like gigantic reeds in a high wind, barking every few seconds and tossing out fiery piumes and choking hot mists—above them on a sort of stage a group of hooded gunners with tin hats over their hoods, manning what might have been taken for a blacksmith's pipe ore gan. . + , Five pipes here with things like New. Year's horns at the end of them, five others, pur ple with grease, extending from ‘bundles of lesser tubes and about them hundreds of small pipes— about the size of a rifle barrel—in’ close-packed circles. Put them all together and they were the pompom batteries — “the Chicago pianos.” The ensemble might be the grand orchestrion of any super cinema. The illusion was heightened by the fact that the players in this symphonic arrangement sat on a platform that, like those in the orchestra pits of modern theaters, can be moved at the touch of a finger. And move it did, every time the ship changed course, every time a new signal . was flashed down from the control towers, every time a Heinkel betrayed ‘itself to the delicate ears of the pointing apparatus. About 4 o'clock this attack was over. The fleet headed into the wind and the wandering fighter planes came back out of the sky. The Heinkels had gone some=where, and so far as anybody in our neighborhood kuew, we had suffered no damage. A lot of us called it a day and went down to the washroom, the chaplain carrying a little black kitten that had crawled up to the signal sta= tion . and couldn't find its way down again. At 6:45 we went back again while Donald Duck announced the presence of an«

other squadron of unseen Heins _

kels. We stood there and watched the planes come over, flying so low that we almost expected them to roll their wheels across the bridge. But, though the organists of the pom-poms stood ready in their pits, there was no fire from the fleet.. The fighter planes stayed moored to the deck of the aircraft carrier, all save one that had been away somewhere and returned to find himself in a dog= fight. Presently he, too, landed. Off the port bow across a sea beautifully mottled by the sunset, one of the cruisers fired a few salvos. Then there was silence while the Nazi squadron came back and forth above us gad twilight presently covered us.

‘Nazis Couldn’t See Us’

“THEY COULDN'T see us,” one of the lieutenants at the signal station explained. “The sea is

pretty dazzling when you look at °

it from 10,000 feet. Even in daylight when there are whitecaps it's pretty har dto make out the units of a fleet.” In the gloaming the signal bridge disgorged a number of officers. “Well, it's all over for the eve ning,” said one. “The last bag appears to have been a couple of eye-ties or a couple of Jerries.” * The tiny marker lights went out on the deck of the aircraft. The signal ‘sergeant suddenly rasped “Wop!” And some flags went up onto the string to meet the last of the waning daylight. We asked him to repeat. He smiled in kind ly" restraint. After all, the world was getting filled up with landlubbers. “Wop,” he replied “W-O-P. . .., That's the signal meaning ‘enemy bomber shot down’.” So into a night of peace and brooding calm we continued on our way to Alexandria.

TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE

1—What are baseball nd football playing fields called? slang

pression for what display affection?

Xe of

3—Name the widow of*a Repe-

resentative who recently elected to Congress. 4—What is an 1. O, U.?

oxygen or sulphur?

6—In which city is the famous

Little Corner?

Church Around

Answers

1—Diamonds and gridirons: 2—A hug. :

the

3—Katharine E. Byron, of Maryland,

t=a eho acknowledgment of & ebt. 5—Sulphur. 6—New York.

. 8 8 ASK THE TIMES

Inclose a 3-cent stamp for reply when addressing any question of fact or information to The Indianapolis Times .Washington Service Bureau, 1013 13th St, N. hy Legal

ible din magnified a hun« °

| ‘

5—Which causes silver to tarnish, *