Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 16 March 1942 — Page 2

SAFE FROM JAVA

Describes Creeping Flight o

“With Japs Playing Death Tattoo; Finally Wins 50-50 Chance.

TA 4 By GEORGE WELLER Copyright, 1942. by The Indianapolis: Times and the Chicago Dally News

SOMEWHERE IN AUSTRALIA, March 15 (Delayed). ~For correspondents lucky enough to obtain transportation on. flying fortresses, Java was hardly more than six hours

m Australia and safety. But for any who stayed mits sailed Sunday, March 1,

dusk the same day from Jogjakarta, Australia was much|

farther away. . "After being’ bombed in Soerabaja, bombed in Bandogng, your correspondent on ‘Monday, March 2, with Wil‘liam Dunn of the Columbia

‘Broadcasting system, and

* Frank J. Cuhal of the Mutual

Broadcasting system, the last remaining broadcasters, started for the southern Java port

of Tjilatjap. De Witt Hancock of the Associ-

ped Press and William H. Mac-

Dougall ‘of the United Press were the only ~ Americans . remaining a n d they planned to leave immediately in another car. Our start was made amid a , raid in which ~ Jap navy zeros Mr. Weller were attempting to destroy the 11 fighters and four bombers, which alone remained as defenders of Java's western plateau, where the Netherland East Indies commander-in-chief, Lieut. Gen. Hein ter Poorten, once planned a Bataan-style stand. There were unashamed tears at

our final handshakes with the men

and women of the Dutch press bu-

~ yeau, headed by L. H. Rithman, the

jovial and lovable director of that singularly honest and fearless gov-

ernmental propaganda department. In Tjilatjap’s small cemetery lay, under walnut - colored wooden

crosses, the bodies of American

_ sailors who died defending Java. ~ Others were there alive, the wounded with reddish scarifying marks

from bomb-blasts. Like ourselves they were placed aboard & small Dutch, island steamer. All day we waited in the tiny harbor raids. but Jap fighters, based on Bali, were harassing the defenses around Rembang

; fifi] only onealarm sounded and no

bombs were dropped.

4 +

Feared Sub Blockade Naval Physician Lieut. Command er C. M. Wassell of Little Rock, Ark, laid his bandaged, wounded - out upon the steamer’s bulicheads. ‘One topic of conver-

: sation’ was our chances of piercing _ thé Japanese submarine blockade. Ab darkness we slipped out through the mine-dotted harbor, clouds ob‘seuring the moon.

. There were about 600 aboard the

4 vessel, with cabins for less than 40. ‘Many were officers, fresh from the _ destruction of the Soerabaja naval

base, about 90 per cent of the passengers being Dutch navy people.

Two were sailors whom I had inter- - viewed at Java's easternmost end, ~ Banjoewangi, opposite Bali, three . days before, after they had spent two days and two nights in the

water seven miles off Bali, after

charge convoying us under cloak of darkness and rain through what‘ever submarines were waiting. We ‘expected, even with the steamer's . labored eight knots an hour, to be

100 miles at sea by daybreak. But dawn found us far closer to Jap bombers.

Bombers Come—and Go

The Dutch admiralty having other final ships to send from the

‘harbor the same night, one bear-

ing enemy alien internees, spread them variously over the sea. Our ordered course lay straight along Java’s shore directly toward the enemy base at Bali and about two miles from shore. Out of the rising sun came the Japanese bombers, the same distance off shore as ourselves in order to evade listening posts. First came pine, then seven, then nine again. They were directly overhead, their - incessantly. The

discovered that I was attempting

jacket, she grew quieter.

“|ship, increasing our belief; that we

Flight on Crowded Steamer

after the last American navy|

and the last bombers departed

missions were to bomb Tjilatjap. We still pursued our creeping course along the shore. The captain knew the inadequacy of six lifeboats to carry 100 times as many

to sea. The passengers; fat with lifebelts, clogged the passageways uncertain whether they would ‘be bombed from below or above.

Sixty Flop on Floor

A burning sun bleamed upon the greased lifeboat davits. I gave an unknown women the journal of my 14 months of wartime evacuations with the request that if her lifeboat reached shore to send it to the Chicago Daily News. Nine returning bombers passed us, parallelled at sea. Then, before the siren could even blurt the first peep

of the quadruple, a signal meaning air attack, machine-gun bullets and cannon shells came directly in‘to the main saloon below the bridge where your correspondent was sitting. Sixty persons were instantly upon the floor, groveling to crawl under benches. Somehow I crawled inte a B-deck passageway. Then came more hammering of steel and splintering of wood. Whether we were being shelled by a submarine, or attacked by an airplane, it was impossible to tell. I saw a curl of blue smoke arising beside on bulkhead door, from an incendiary bullet. “Stop “pushing me,” said the little Eurasian woman ahead of me on the jammed stairs. When she

to lace her huge, mattresslike life-

Only Explosions Heard

For an interval we arose. Then came again the tervible hammering and tearing of wood, running like a Xylophone the full length of the ship. No motors could be heard, nothing but explosions. Each time, the corridors were jammed with bodies. As we struggled downward, attacks began upon the sides of the

were being shelled from shore by the Japs, who had already crossed the island. Then we were machinegunned and shelled also from the seaward side. Between attacks, we lay sweating and prone, some Malays and some whites too covering their eyes like the evil-fearing monkey curling into an embryonic ball. I found the whole right shoulder of my bushjacket drenched with blood, which had soaked even my glass case. But I was not wounded. Three wounded lay in the corridors but none whom I could recognize as having been beside me.

played upon us. The rear-gunner got a bullet through his hat, another across his uniform, For more than an hour after the last attack, all of us lay sweating, prone upon the iron decks and in the darkness of closed compartments. Then. slowly arose bodies dented with their own life-jackets, the cork of which was in some cases torn away.

Lifeboat Shet Open

There had beeh two Jap planes. One lifeboat was shot open, Hardly a ventilator, or stretch of canvas, sut had been riddled. The Japs simply had shot themselves empty upon us. : But nothing could make us go faster than our eight knots. The sun was still high; it was hardly noon. We crept toward shore and entered the tiny harbor of Patjitan. There were no natives visible. The captain lowered the boats and asked all who wished to row ashore to leave. He said that we had only a “slight to perhaps 50-50 chance” of escaping. About 300 went ashore and were last seen trailing up a narrow path into country where the Jap spearhead was hardly 20 miles away. Under cover of darkness, we again crept out to sea. Eleven days of sleeping upon open decks with lifebelts always entwined on one arm about us, with our American wounded, fo safety.

Four times the death tattoo was|

people and did not dare to turn| §

RUSS SMASHING GERMAN LINES

Grinding Enemy to Pieces in Kharkov and at

Staraya Russa. (Continued from Page One)

important triumphs of the winter offensive. The early liberation of Kharkov and the capture of Staraya Russa,

where Trom 100,000 to more than|® 200,000 Germans had been reported

‘trapped, appeared likely on the

basis of reports from Moscow. It those reports are borne out the axis will lose two of the vital bases that Hitler had ordered held at any cost. as ‘springboards for a 1942 drive toward the Caucasus. The Nazi fuehrer acknowledged to a certain extent the dangers that his armies face. ‘In a speech Sunday in Berlin, he postponed until summer the victory which he had promised ‘over the Russians as soon as spring released his mechanized hordes from the grip of Russia's ice .and snow.

Desolation in Kharkov He repeated that in the summer,

{when the vast flat lands of the

Ukraine are dusty, there would be an overwhelming victory on the eastern front; but at almost the same hour Moscow was giving a grim picture of the German positions at key Points in both the

north and south’

At" Kharkov, fourth largest city of Russia, the soviet dispatches said, the Germans have inflicted terrible suffering on the Russian people, killing some 14,000 and throwing other thousands into cells pending execution. :

Hunger and death and desolation

capital of the Ukraine~but Russian guerrillas are there, too, and are striking at the enemy inside the city.

Break Through Nazi Lines

Between Kharkov and the railroad center of Orel, to the north, the Red armies were reported to have broken through the enemy lines in many places and the Germans have suffered heavy losses in their efforts to hold their main bases during the winter.

In the north, the Russians said that an important enemy defense sector had been taken on the Staraya Russa front by a Red army unit that the Germans had claimed was “wiped out” some time ago. Germans, were reported surrendering because of cold and hunger south of Lake Ilmen and on the Leningrad front another 1800 were killed in the last two days.

Air Alarm in London

Other united nations forces were busy on the European front over the week-end and there was an air alarm in London this morning, due apparently to two Gere man planes that flew high over the Thames estuary. The apparent reconnaissance ace tivities of the Nazi craft indicated that bombing raids might be resumed in force for the first time since last May 10. In the European coastal waters, British air and naval forces engaged the Germans over the weekend.

British Bombers Busy

The London admiralty reported that two German E-boats (fast torpedo motor boats) had heen knocked out and four others damaged without loss to the British. In the Mediterranean, it was reported by the Rome radio that the British had bombed Rodi, in the Dodecanese islands, off the Turkish coast. This is one path of possible axis offensive into the Near East this spring, The Italians reported four British

Hoosierspaid their taxes to smash the axis. .

are in the streets of the wrecked!

THOROUGH EXAMINATION (We Take Plenty of Time) . ,

® Use Your Charge Account ® Use Our Payment Plan

DR. R. J: WELDON

planes downed by their fighters and

three by Germans in battles in the Mediterranean area. Dispatches from Cairo said that British pilots flying American-built planes had caused heavy damage in raids on axis air bases in Libya and that American Kittyhawk fighters had driven off enemy fighter craft

Ext

. So the clerical force in the office of the collector of internal revenue in Indianapolis, handled a lot of mall—and a lot of money—today., Left to right are Ww. 0. Plummer, George Phillips, Golda Rinehart, Dorothy Lusk and Herbert French.

i (Continued from Page One) Henry . Ford's new bomber plant in

bombers as big as several freight cars is a very different thing from lines used in making autos that or two. that there are about in a big Consolidated d that 600,000 rivets and hundred thousand are used in putting

iogether, may give you

begins, long before assembly line is reached, in " [towering buildings that seem, to ong walking through them, to extend for miles, and where thousands of workmen—and workwomen—are dwarfed among mazes of machinery. .

£5

i: EE

IF is

Each Worker Does Share

Small parts are put together to make small sub-assemblies, and these in turn \are joined to others to become larger and larger subassemblies and finally a complete wing or fuselage. By some magic, ‘each of the myriad parts arrives at

Artist Reiffel Is Dead on Coast

SAN DIEGO, Cal, March 16 (U. P.).—Funeral services will be held tomorrow for Charles Reiffel, nationally known landscape painter. Mr. Reiffel, whose paintings have won more than 25 important awards, died Saturday. He was 79. The artist was born and educated in Indianapolis but had lived in San Diego for 17 years.” He was a past

president of the Silvermine artist's

guild at Silvermine, Conn.

Charles Reiffel was a frequent contributor to Indiana art exhiRitions and in 1938 had a one-man at Herron. At that time the useum purchased his “Harrowing,” landscape farm scene and it is ent collection

TERMS REACHED TOEND GAS CASE

Authority for City to Buy Company Real Estate

Asked in Petition. (Continued from Page One)

which the ‘city has placed the lease rental payments ever since 1935, By April 1 the fund will total approximately $2,750,000. - - The 99-year lease was ‘executed’ by Indianapolis Gas in 1913 ‘when it ‘ceased operating in competition with Citizens Gas and turned its properties over to the latter. The lease provides for Citizens Gas (and now its successor, the city) paying 6 per cent interest on Indianapolis Gas ‘bonds, dividends on the stock, all taxes and properly maintaining the property. Cost Is Increasing

At present this costs the city $600,000 a year, and with taxes going up, that figure would be considerably higher in a year or two. No taxes are required on municipally-owned property. Consummation of the proposed settlement of the case requires the consent not only of the public service commission but also of city council and of the Indianapolis Gas common stockholders. Notices seeking approval of the stockholders were placed in the mails today, and an enabling ordinance is scheduled for introduction at tonight’s council meeting, Participating in the parleys at which the settlement was worked out were the law firm of Thompson, O'Neal & Smith, representing the city; officials of Indianapolis Gas; Paul Beardsley, assistant trust officer of the Chase National bank of New York, which is trustee for the bondholders; Philip M. Stearns of Boston, representing four major bondholders. Also assisting was Cyrus Eaton, Cleveland financier. Litigation Began in 1936

The litigation over the lease was started in 1936 when Chase National bank filed suit in Federal court here to force the city to abide by the lease, District Judge Robert C. Baltzell ruled the Federal courts had no jurisdiction. On appeal, the U. 8. Circuit court of appeals at Chicago reversed that ruling and ordered Judge Baltzell to try the case. He did and ruled the lease was not binding on the city. The appeals court again reversed Judge Baltzell; holding that the lease was binding on the city. The case then went to the U. S. Supreme court which upheld Judge Baltzell’s original ruling of “no jurisdiction.” "That was last November. Subsequently the case was renewed in the Boone circuit court, and still is pending there. :

What A Cough!

And how it burts, and nags And disturbs your our sleep.

SA dS hn I

FEHR oem and Js She

al processwiih oer time tested It = i ae

the spot where it must be used at the precise instant when it is

225,000 STATE

needed.

)s ss Ou u of

Wings and fuselages meet at the door of the buildnig that houses the

assembly line. There they are welded together and mounted on rolling platforms, each platform seeming as large as a city building lot, ‘and all. il coupled: together traveling chain that stretches almost out of sight down one broad corridor and back up another. ‘As the. embryo bomber ‘moves slowly past one “station” on the as+ sembly line, workers swarm over it and inside it. By the time it has passed their “station” they have completed their share of the process. The plane takes aboard a new crew of mechanics, and the first ciew returns to its starting point for another busy ride on the next bomber.

Women Do Their Part So it continues, the plane gradually going past many “stations,” acquiring engines, instruments, landing wheels, equipment in bewildering variéty, until finally it emerges into the sunshine—ready for final testing, fueling and flight. In other buildings, by more ortho-

dox assembly processes, Consolidated is turning out flying boats bigger than the Santa Maria in which Columbus crossed the Atlantic, There are grandmothers among the several thousand women workers who are helping to build these

MEN IN DRAFT

New Registrants’ Numbers To Be Pulled From

Bowl Tomorrow. (Continued from Page One)

pulled from the fishbowl, you will have order number three and will be the third of the new registrants to be considered by your local draft board for military service, Seven thousand serial numbers will be drawn from the fishbowl and each local board will scratch off those serial numbers that are higher than any held by their registrants ih raving up their order number sts. For example, if serial number 6000 is the first serial number pulled and there are no registrants in a board area with that number, the ‘local board merely scratches off that number and the holder of the second serial number pulled, providing there is a person in the ares hold. | ing it, receives order No. 1. The new registrants who are placed in 1-A are to be called in proportion to the number of old] Class 1-A registrants remaining, according to draft officials, Here's where the lists of serial numbers are posted: Board 1, 201 K. of P. building; Board 2, 324 K. of P. building; Boards 3, 4, 5, 6, state ‘house rotunda; Board 7, 636 K. of P. building; Board 8, federal building lobby; Board 9, state house rotunda; Board 10, South Side Community Center, 1233 Shelby st., and Boards 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15, state house rotunda,

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—Downstairs at Ayres.

ther in a}

rs for Japs. Vest: eas Bombers Roll Off Assembly Line

bombers—and there. are girls who appear to be of high-school age. In the blue slack-suits which are their standard costume they add color to the plant. Getting the same wage Bs: mien for comparable work, women are especially proficient in © certain painstaking jobs, such as electrical assemblies. But no branch of activity seems to be barred to them One of the fastest welders in Gon solidated’s Vultee plant at Los Angeles, where trainers, pursuit planes and five bombers ‘are built, In ‘8 woman. “We're planning to employ more and more women,” says Mr. Girdler. “They can release manpower for military service. Mr. Girdler, who admits that he will always be first a steel man, apparently is getting a. tremoundous kick out of directing this big branch of a very different industry. “We're going on the theory that one plane in the air today is better than three a year from now;® he says. y “I wish everybody in this: country could know all about what the aircraft industry is doing. They'd feel better about America’s ability to do the big job we've got to do. 4 “If this war lasts a year or so, the American aircraft industry will accomplish things that a dozen Jules Vernes wouldn't ‘have dared to predict.”

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