Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 10 February 1942 — Page 11

TUESDAY, FEB. 10, 1942

The Indianapolis Times

SECOND SECTION

Hoosier Vagabond

TIMERLINE LODGE, Ore., Feb. 10.—These last few days, while dwelling on other things, we've sort of neglected my personal skiing. I mean neglected it in the column. But I've been right out there every day, laboring conscientiously. The days are building up now, and it'll soon be time to leave. And so far I haven't learned how to do a thing. We're still out on that same little slope, still trying to find out how to make “stem turns.” I still can't force myself to lean OUT on a turn—and when I do accomplish that violation of scientific balance I always fall on over in that direction. Maybe I could iearn some day. I'm not sure. Certainly I can't be accused of not persevering. I'm known around here as the guy who's always down but never out. One of the girls in our threescme class disappeared, leaving only one girl and myself. We are both tenacious students. For days I didn’t know this girl's name, or where she was from, or anything about her. Finally it occurred to me that maybe I should get her identified, just in case of accident or something.

He Meets Maureen

SO AFTER ROLLING down the same hill together for several days, we at last met in the lodge, shook hands, and introduced ourselves. Her naine was Maureen Jackman. Maureen is from Spokane. She’s just a kid. She went one year to college, and then got a job as telephone operator in Spokane. She got a week's vacation after six months. She didn’t know what to do with it, so she went to the

By Ernie Pyle

local travel agent, and wound up at Timberline on a four-day “tour.” Maureen says she’s sore from head to foot from her falling-down bruises. But being young, her muscles don’t bother her a bit. It’s the opposite with me. My hide is wrinkled and tough and I don’t bruise easily. But oh those tendons of mine. Ouch! Maureen has never before been away from home on a big trip. She doesn’t know beans about traveling, so that gives me a chance to show off and help her out with little things—such as teiling her how much to tip, and that there are Yellow Cabs in other cities besides Spokane, and that New Mexico is in the United States. I don’t think she believed it, though, when I said I'd been in England.

Might Join the Ski Troops

IN A WAY, I feel hadly about Maureen's vacation. It has always been my assumption that girls who spend their hard-earned money for a lake cruise or a Hollywood trip, or a jaunt to the ski-bowls, did it in a kind of romantic hopefulness. But there are nc detached young men at Timberline just now. In fact the paucity of Greek gods is so extreme that Maureen has had to wind up her first big worldly vacation with an old goat like me as her only social companion. I can’t dance, sing, swim, ski, skate, carry on a conversation or tolerate moonlight. I'm not even rich. I don’t see how Maureen can bear it. A great many Oregon skiers have gone into the Ski Troops. Practically any good skier can get into the outfit, they tell me. The Army has given the Ski Patrol the job of attesting to the ability of ski volunteers. Tomorrow is my last day here. I've decided to practice all night tonight. It simply must not get about that the great Ernst couldn’t make one turn in a whole week. Tomorrow I'll either make that turn or break up my skis, poles, legs and arms in a final rage of frustration. In case I do make it, I think I'll join the Ski Troops.

Inside Indianapolis By Lowell Nussbaum

IF YOU THINK your Uncle Sam is kidding when he says “no weather tips that will aid the enemy,” consider the experience of none other than Mayor Sullivan, himself. One day last week Hizzoner was scheduled to make a radio talk in connection with the Victory Book campaign. The talk he prepared started out something like this: “In one way, the weather today is a help to this campaign. The downpour of rain and the bleak skies impress upon us the value of books as a medium of entertainment as well as information.” He showed his manuscript to the radio station 15 minutes before he was to go on the air, and would you believe it? They made him cut all reference to the weather. Uncle Sam's orders.

Trudging Along JUDSON L. STARK, the former Prosecutor, is a member of the TNT Dancing Club. The “TNT” is a misnomer, as it’s a sedate group of married couples. They have a formal dance once a month, and met last Friday at the Woman's Department Club. After the first dance, Jud looked down at his feet, then remarked to Mrs. Stark: “No wonder my feet felt so heavy.” She, too, looked down and saw he still was wearing his overshoes. Better save those overshoes, Jud: they're rubber. Marjorie Main, the Hoosier girl who is doing all right in the movies and who got considerable space in the local papers recently when she visited here, is

Washington

WASHINGTON, Feb. 10.—For a year we were told that the automobile industry could not be converted to war work, yet that is being done now. Which leads one to think that maybe if an effort were made we could convert a lot of the Government to war work.

This is not so much a matter of dollar economy. All the dollars that could be saved by non-de-fense economies would hardly be noticed among the billions that must be spent on the war. The point is in other kinds of economy. As it is going now, thousands of new people are coming into Washington every week. The War Department is trying to add 40,000 civilians, mostly clerical. Mr. Roosevelt has spoken of possibly a quarter-million additional employees coming here during the war. I don’t know what there is for so many to do, and employees are coming in faster than they can be digested and put at a full day’s work. But even on the assumption that most of the additional help will be needed, the question arises whether some of this influx might not be eliminated by converting employees from old non-war agencies to emergency work.

Too Much Moving Around

THE GOVERNMENT is moving some agencies out of town. Clerical forces, which form the largest percentage of the number, are to go along. Why shouldn’t these non-defense agencies moving away take only

the key and specialized personnel and leave the routine employees here to be transferred to war agencies? Routine help can be picked up in the new location.

My Day

WASHINGTON, Monday.—It was perfectly wonderful on Saturday morning, when I stepped off the train, to be met at 7 o'clock by our eldest son, who had just flown in from the coast on orders. I find that in war time these visits are always a surprise. They are doubly precious, not only because of their unexpectedness, but because one’s whole outlook today is sharpened to an appreciation of the need to make the most of every opportunity to be with those one loves. My nephew, Mr. Henry Roosevelt, also was with us for a brief two days, so we had a quiet family dinner Saturday night. Yesterday, I went to see a friend in the hospital and devoted most of the afternoon catching up on mail, I am spending today entirelv at the Office of Civilian Defense, so I was happy to be able to see Mr. and Mrs. Grosvenor Allen, of Oneida, N. Y., at lunch time. When old friends come to Washington, to see them even for a short time.

being advertised currently at Loew's as Marjorie Means. If you don’t believe it, look at the posters on}: the sides of the downtown corner trash boxes.

How’s That for Crowing?

THERE'S A SMART rooster living somewhere in the vicinity of 59th St. and Norwaldo Ave. Every morning for several months he has anncunced the arrival of the 6 a. m. Central-Broad Ripple bus with a lusty crow, or two. Well, patrons of that outlandish-

ly early bus insist the rooster remembered to set his clock ahead Sunday night. Yesterday morning as the bus approached the corner at 6 a. m.,, War Time (which is 5 a. m, Standard Time), the rooster was right on time with his crowing. And that’s something to crow about. . . . There's a station wagon around town that on its doors has the name: Bedside Manor.

Love Laughs at

JUST MARRIED, Frederick Arthur McLaughlin and his bride, the former Martha Morrison, were escorted to the Union Station Saturday by a group of friends. Mr. McLaughlin's luggage was in the trunk of the car driven by his best man, Joseph C. Beveridge. They got to the station about 20 minutes before train time. When Mr. Beveridge attempted to unlock the trunk, he couldn't seem to find the key. Everybody laughed; it seemed a good joke to tease the groom. When it got down to a couple of minutes before train time, it began to be apparent it was no joke. The newlyweds managed to catch the train, but Mr. MecLaughlin's luggage had to be expressed to him at Chicago on a later train—after the key was found.

By Raymond Clapper

Why move clerks out of Washington and bring in others? ; Furthermore, there is no reason why some of the personnel in non-war agencies could not be detailed to war work. There has been a considerable amount of that in the higher ranks and among the specialized personnel. In line with the spirit of the times when all non-war activities are being curtailed, it might be possible to reduce the amount of paper work that goes on in the regular Government agency. If the effort were made, it probably would be found that every agency, except in its sections devoted to war work, could reiease supervisory and clerical personnel to be detailed to war agencies.

Too Much Boondoggling

SOMETHING of this kind will have to be done. The Budget Director, Harold Smith, estimates that 85,000 new employees will come to Washington this year. Neither office space nor living space is available. For office space, they are digging up the beautiful mall between the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument. Government departments are full of boondoggling work that now could come under the head of nonessential activity. Jimmy Byrnes, long before he went on the Supreme Court, once said that the nearest thing to immortality on this earth was a Government bureau. Much of this has grown up over a long period of years. Most of it developed during the depression when there was some excuse for it. Senator Byrd of Virginia has been crusading to reduce nonessential expenditures. But there isn’t much appeal in trying to save a few million dollars when you are spending 50 billion in one year. However, there is a case to be made about the number of people. the amount of office space, and the living quarters that this nonessential work is eating up.

By Eleanor Roosevelt

on Saturday, after being checked up at the hospital, and was ordered to repert on Monday afternoon in preparation for the removal of his appendix early Tuesday morning. 1 am so thankful that after the slight attacks which he had during his last period of sea duty, he is able to get off and to have this operation performed, for destroyers in winter seas are not very good places on which to be taken ill. He tells me over the telephone that the new baby is wonderful, but he is a little afraid of handling him. We have a perfectly lovely baby spending a few days with us in the White House. She is three-and-a-half months old, the daughter of my cousins, Mr. and Mrs. W. Forbes Morgan Jr, and seemed completely engrossed in the President so long as he held her in his arms. The governor of New Hampshire, Robert O. Blood, has sent me two wonderful wooden paiis. They are called “Granite State Bom-Pails.” And he says: “We of New Hampshire are pleased to contribute in a small way to the nationa! defense program by furnishing a substitute which will conserve scarce material, such as metal, using our hurricane lumber and using iabor of an average of 60 years of age as is found in our pail factories.” I think you will find them satisfactory. They

ARMY PUSHES ROAD TO HELP DEFEND CANAL

Engineers Racing Weather; Rain Would Turn It

Into Sea of Gumbo.

By NAT A. BARROWS

Copy A 1942, by The Indianapolis Times he Chicago Daily News, Inc

PIO GATUN, REPUBLIC OF PANAMA, Feb. 10.—From where we stood looking down into a jungle abyss near the partly completed highway across the Isthmus of Panama, the youthful, barebacked operator of the bulldozer tractor wasn’t worth a dime as an insurance risk.

Nonchalantly he pulled and pushed his levers to send the bulldozer snorting into the side of the mountain. From his casual manner he might have been in the middle of a prairie. We shuddered as we watched the tractor whirl and twist a few inches from the edge of the cliff. One small mistake in judgment . . . one delayed yank of the control levers . . . one tiny landslide under the weight of that mechanical monster —and then a plunge, over and over, into eternity. He was betting his skill and his nerve against $435 a month. And earning every cent of it.

“Couple Goes Over Side”

Nearby, another bulldozer was attacking a barrier of matted jungle growth that would have denied access to even a cat. This driver, too, was skirting the edge of a cliff and, at the same time, somehow contriving to balance his bulldozer on a clopse that must have been close to 40 degrees. Everyone of us, even our nerveless Army “peep” drivers, got a little pale at that sight.

“Yes, we've had a couple go over the side in the 14 months since we started this 26.7-mile section from Colon to Madden Dam,” remarked one of the engineers. “They do get away once in a while. But, counting everything, we've had only five deaths out of more than 1400 ‘gold’ and ‘silver’ employees.” The low mortality rate was convincing—but, just the same, bulldozer operators on the trans-Isth-mian highway can have their job. I'll light firecrackers near a powder mazagine. The odds seem better. These highway constructors work

days a week. That leaves them lit-

sleeping and eating. Bankroll Piles Up

Daily their bankroll piles up. The United States Government, which is building the highway through the public roads administration at a total cost of $8,000,000, charges them exactly $1 a day for three hearty meals and lodging. Figure that out for the shovel operators with their $575 monthly pay and you’ll see why men—college graduates, former office workers, oilfield workers, bigtime construction men—are willing to shut themselves up in a teeming jungle wilderness for months at a time. At present, the dry season is upon Panama and the progress is rapid, some T7000 feet of concrete laid each working day. If the heavy rains hold off through March, the Atlantic half of the coast-to-coast road may be finished and opened to military traffic.

a or

Certain to Be Hot

But no one here ever is rash enough to make any predictions about the weather. Only one thing is certain: It will be just as hot tomorrow as it is today, probably even hotter. So, the proposed completion of the Atlantic section of this 48-mile road is merely a wishful guess. Two or three unseasonable downpours will turn the unsurfaced section into a quagmire of red gumbo mud. With fingers crossed and eyes upturned anxiously at rain clouds, the highway engineers are pushing forward with every ounce of energy in this race against the weather. This highway is of the greatest importance to the increased defense of the Panama Canal. Otherwise, Lieut. Gen. Frank M. Andrews, commanding the unified Caribbean defense command, would never have thrown the army engineers into that by-pass construction which finally gave army trucks a passage from coast to coast.

| SOUTHERN INDIANA

T0 HONOR PIONEERS

SULLIVAN, Ind., Feb. 10 (U. P.). —Southern Indiana's pioneer institutions, business firms, churches, clubs, schools and citizens will be honored Feb. 12, 13 and 14 at the state’s first “Valley of Democracy” folk festival at Merom, Ind. Nominations of institutions and persons to be honored are being made daily by neighboring communities. The festival will feature demonstrations of pioneer crafts such as weaving, quilting and candle-mak-ing. Ancient articles will be displayed and folk games will be played. Mrs. Edward Dickinson, secretary of the projected event, said the festival will be held “because never before have the pioneer virtues of religious faith, love of land and responsibility to one’s fellows been more important than today.”

HONORED AT PRINCETON Cornelius - O. Alig Jr, of 4420 Washington Blvd. has been elected circulation manager of the Daily Princetonian, undergraduate news-

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Jeeps’ Try Out Isthmus

Highway

Army “jeeps” parade over a section of the trans-Panama highway which has not yet been laid with concrete. A motorcade recently traversed the Colon- Madden Dam section of the highway on a round trip

from the Pacific to the Atlantic.

In some places bulldozers have to make 100-foot cuts through hog backed

hills and also make fills in sheer-dropping water-torn ravines during the construction of the road, re-

garded as vital to the defense of the canal.

The road is open for emergency use.

It is 47 miles long,

By HALLETT ABEND

2

Vlll—Hawaiian Defenses

THE UNITED STATES Army plays a vital part in the defense of the great American bastion in the Pacific, which Hawaii has gradually become. By the end of January of last year the Army garrison numbered about 35,000 men, infantry, artillery, engineers and allied

services. This was separate from the air forces of the Army at Wheeler and Hickam Fields. At these air fields, buildings, homes and barracks were under way to house 2700 flying officers and 13,000 men. By the first of September these buildings had been completed and were fully oceupied, while construction was under way to bring the personnel of the field to a total of 25,000 officers and men. Similar expansions had been achieved and were being planned for all other Army contingents in the islands—a loose general statement from which the size of our military establishment, as distinct from our Naval forces at Pearl Harbor, may be gauged. Whereas Pearl Harbor had been rapidly ex-

panded into the world’s strongest and most important naval base,

it had been the task of the

Army to fortify the island of Oahu so effectively that the task of capturing Pearl Harbor would be

Hallett Abend Ten

prohibitively costly to any enemy naval attack. years ago a project was afoot to ring

Oahu with a vast system of concrete fortifications and pill boxes, similar to the Maginot and Siegfried lines along the frontiers of France and Germany, but this plan was later abandoned in favor of a scheme

for elastic and mobile defense. = un o

Five Defense Lines

The Army in Hawaii is today largely concentrated in and around Schofield Barracks, on the great plain northwest of Hono-~ lulu The whole command is highly motorized, and a magnificent system of concrete highways, fine roads and wide trails has been built that would permit the rapid dispatch of men and guns to any and every vulnerable spot on the whole island. The sirategical experts have it that Hawaii now has five lines of defense, each of which would have to be eliminated one at a time before the next could be contacted, and that all five would have to be virtually destroyed before Pearl Harbor, Honolulu and Oahu could be captured by the Japanese. These “five lines of defense,” in their order of contact with an enemy, are as follows: first, naval aircraft; second, naval surface craft; third, Army aircraft; fourth, coast defense artillery; and fifth, infantry of all branches. Probably the strength of these defenses nurtured the fatal feeling of security which made possible the surprise of December 7. There is an understandable and purposeful vagueness about Army discussions of the strength of coast defenses, but it is readily admitted that there are at least

four 16-inch guns on the island, and “about a dozen batteries, of from two to four guns each, of 12 and 14-inch artillery.” ” ” 2

Heavy Guns in Forts

IN ADDITION, they concede, there are “approximately” 20 batteries, of trom two to four guns to the battery, of six and eightinch coast artillery, “several” batteries of four guns each of “less than six-inch caliber,” and a very large number of 155mm. rifles. Forts de Russy and Ruger, guarding Honolulu from the shoulders of Diamond Head, have heavy guns, as do the three forts guarding Pearl Harbor and its en= trances—Forts Kamehameha, Barrette and Weaver. The Sixty-Fourth Coast Artillery, stationed at Ft. Shafter, has anti-aircraft guns, machine guns and giant searchlights of 800,000,000 candlepower. Other searchlight stations behind Honolulu blaze for a score of miles across the seas, as night coast artillery practice reveals to every excited observer. Diamond Head, which juts out beyond famous Waikiki Beach and is a favorite landmark for seamen and tourists, is not a cliff, as it appears to be from the west, but is really a gigantic volcanic bowl, is strictly prohibited to all persons except those having military busi-

HOLD EVERYTHING

ness of first-rate importance and is often called a “second Gibraltar.” It is popularly supposed to contain enormous mortars capable of belching huge shells far out to sea. ” ” ”

Gigantic Barracks

THE GIGANTIC barracks erected at Hickam Field was one of the wonders of military housing. With wings and a continuous series of H-shaped additions, it accomodates 3500 men under one roof, and the structure is only three stories in height, It is so large that it is a common jest that airmen who have inside day duty never get out into the sunlight and are as pale as office workers instead of being ruddy and bronzed as are most soldiers in the tropics. Photographs show that more than one bomb hit this huge building. When it comes to food supplies for the military and civilian populations there is worry in plenty, now that we are at war in the Pacific. One committee, after careful study, found that there existed in the islands only a 24-day complete supply of all essential foodstuffs, but other estimates are less pessimistic and place existing reserves at sufficient for from two to three months. Although Navy authorities say it is almost impossible to imagine a situation arising under which convoys of foodships from the mainland to Hawaii could Ye entirely prevented, the Navy neverthe less has long openly favored increased storage of supplies. Losses from submarine attacks upon convoyed supply ships will “not exceed the average,” says the Navy, but ample reserves of food in storage would reduce the number of armed vessels that have to guard convoys, and this would be a distinct naval advantage. The Navy has been steadily adding to its number of supply ships and is now well equipped with such vessels.

” 2 2

Wise Decisions

THE NAVY has an acute supply question of its own to face. Even before the hostilities began, naval supply ships had a stupendous task to face: that of supplying about 500,000 personnel scattered from Manila, Hawaii, Alaska, to the Panama Canal, the West Indies and the bases in the Atlantic. The minimum daily food requirements then ran gbout 1250 tons. To cope with this problem nearly thirty new supply ships were purchased in 1940, and in 1941 another 52 vessels, averaging 15,000 tons, were acquired, while an undisclosed number are being rushed to completion in our shipyards. A definite policy of “buy American” has been adopted by the Navy, and with the exception of tea, coffee and cocoa, nearly all foods consumed on the ships and at shore stations come from American farms. Our various deficiencies in Hawaii, as in the Philippines and elsewhere, were due to the fact that we had to send so great a proportion of our mounting production of ships and material to Britain and to Soviet Russia. All last summer and autumn the problem to be decided was “how much will keep them going?” and “how much are our own irreducible minimum demands?” It is now evident that wise decisions were made. The Japanese attack upon us must have been coldly and calculatingly in preparation for many months. Had we, in those months, strengthened ourselves to such a point that either Britain or Russia would have gone under for lack of certain supplies, the ranks of the embattled democracies would today be dangerously weak.

1, TTR

THREE CAUSES GIVEN FOR AXIS GAINS IN LIBYA

British Air Mastery Offset By Bad Weather and

Desert Hazards.

By RICHARD MOWRER

Copyrifht, 1942. by The Indianapolis Times nd The Chicago Daily News, In

CAIRO, Feb. 10.— The British have air superiority in the Middle East—the only war theater to date where the Allies are enjoying such an important advantage. Yet this air mastery has not been sufficient to prevent the Axis forces under Marshal Erwin Rommel from ree taking half of the Cirenaica. Why?

The answer is that when the Axis launched its counter-offensive in Libya the British, South Africa and Free French air forces out here were unable to operate with 100 per cent efficiency—this, for three reae sons: 1. The weather. The Axis, forces took full advane tage of the bad weather conditions which greatly neutralized the Brite ishers’ air power, Thus Marshal Rommel, anxious to press his initial advantage with the utmost speed, could afford to divert the fuel orig= inally intended for his planes to the tanks and vehicles of his ground forces instead.

Ground Units Lacked Support

This fact, together with the cape ture of British fuel dumps, contribe uted to the speed of the Axis ade vance—which brings us to the next reason: 2. Airfields and interdependence of land and air arms. Because the ground forces were unable to stem the enemy advance the air force was repeatedly come= pelled to evacuate convenient aire fields, and because the air force had to think of the evacuation of its threatened landing grounds, it was unable to give the ground forces all the support it might otherwise have given. 3. The desert. Because of the nature of the topography, air action over the desert is different from air action over Europe.

Dispersal Easy

In Europe there are railroad junctions, towns, bridges, defiles and roads where the troops must pass if they are going some place—nice targets for planes. In the Libyan desert there is mostly just a flat expanse and dispersal, consequently, is possible to perfec tion. Then, it may be asked, what is the use of air superiority in the Middle East? The answer is, if it were not for British air superiority things might be worse than they are now. The fact that the enemy has been slowed down during the past days can be attributed to the cumulative effect of British air superiority which has persistently attacked Rommel’s supply columns.

SOUTH SIDE CENTER ARRANGES 2 PARTIES

The South Side Community Center has planned an afternoon and evening party Thursday for children and adults. A tea dance and games for children from 6 to 14 will be held at 3 p. m. under the supervision of the City Recreation Department and Sub-Deb clubs. A dance at 8 p. m, will be held for their elders. Among those taking part in the arrangements are Misses Mary and Catherine Kelly, Dorothy Padgett, Betty West and Marjorie Cron. Others on committees are James Russell, Jim Okey, Pat Kelly, Hare old Karas and Edward Wiltsee. Miss Thelma Martin is director of the center,

TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE

1—Who preceded Lieut. Gen. Eiki Tojo as Premier of Japan? 2—A toper is a man’s high hat, a drunkard, or a maker to tops? 3—Give another name for Iraq. 4—An object weighing 10 pounds will fall 10 times more rapidly than one weighing one pound; true or false? 5—In which season of the year did the United States enter most of the wars in which it has ene gaged? 6—An abattoir is a pendant, a washstand, or a slaughter house? 7—The staff surmounted by a crook, borne by bishops and archbishops on ceremonial occasions, is called

8—In which of the following photoplays, “The Man Who Came to Dinner,” “Pygmalion,” “Target for Tonight,” was Wendy Hiller the leading woman?

Answers 1—Prince Fumimaro Konoye. 2—A drunkard. 3—Mesopotamia. 4—False. 5—Spring. 6—sSlaughter house. T—Crosier, 8—“Pygmalion.” 2 a =

ASK THE TIMES

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