Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 30 March 1942 — Page 9
Lag
MONDAY, MARCH
1942
Ry
Inc
ianapolis
; SECOND SECTION
- Hoosier Vagabond
PALM SPRINGS, Cal, March 30.—This is the last of my pieces on Mrs, Nellie Coffman, the woman who mothered the bare deserts of the southwest into a national haven for the tired and the vacation-
probably the most that has ever been written about her. For, despite her friendly nature, Mother Cofiman is very shy of publicity. (Of course, when I started working my ccbra-like charms on her, she was helpless.) She has good reason to be shy. For, some years ago, a national magazine wrote her up and pictured her as a sort of Klondike Annie, with a mule-skinner’s tongue and knots on her fists.
Such a picture is very far from the truth. She could much more aptly be compared with my own mother. She has had a hard life, but there is’ nothing hard about her personality. As her son Earl says, “There has never been anything undignified about my mother.” Mother Coffman does not look like a city woman when she’s dressed up, nor does she look like a desert resident either. She looks like a Midwestern grandmother,
Her Work Is Her Amusement
SHE HAS NEVER gone in for the baubles that many well-to-do people amuse themselves with. Her work has been her amusement. She is no slave to her work, but her facile mind, always thinking up something new to accomplish, has kept her young. Despite the vast grassy haven inside the grounds the inn, the Coffmans are still close to their love—the desert. Walk a few blocks and out on the sand, away from everything. One
reatest Ie
ou
Inside Indianapolis By Lowell Nussbaum
A FRIEND tells us he almost was overcome by the extreme courtesy of an Illinois-Fairground streetcar operator the other evening. Several passengers who got on downtown asked questions and were answered with a smile. It was raining. At 9th st. an elderly woman started to get on the streetcar. Her hat blew off and out into the street. The operator stepped off his car, out into the rain, recovered the hat, wiped it off with his sleeve and handed it to the passenger. A man who said he was deaf asked to be notified when the car reached 34th st. And so the operator sfopped his car at 34th, stepped back in the car and politely signaled the deaf man. And that's the way it went. It was such a shock that our friend took the operator's number, 507, then checked on his identity. Indianapolis railways said he was Robert Copeiand, 1013 Ingomar st. Posies to No. 307.
Pretty Nifty, Boys
THE PRIVATE office of the county commissioners no longer resembles a den. Bit by bit, the commissioners have been dolling it up until now it looks strangely out of place in the dingy old courthouse. I'ne floor has been covered with a deeply padded carpet—pea green in color, The little old rolltop desks have disappeared and in their places are large flat top, walnut decks of the exzcutive type. On each is a neat desk lamp—green to match the carpeting. hh front of the desks are nice new swivel chairs, Topping off the whole and adding a homey touch are living-room type indirect floor lamps, one beside each desk. Altogether, it makes a pretty picture—at the taxpavers expense, of course . The voter regoffice is sending notices to voters who must One
istration
re-register in order te be able to vote this year.
From New Delhi By Raymond Clapper
NEW DELHI India, March 30. —If the course of empire is changing here at Delhi, as I think it surely is, a footnote should record that this historic moment is in the hands of a new kind of man in British empire affairs, He is totally unlike the embroidered figures through which India has hitherto felt the grip of London. Sir Stafford Cripps is a slight, lean, agile, graving man, like a lithe tennis plaver. Though entering his fifties, his years are just DLeginning to settle down on youth. He remincs me more of Harry Hopkins than anyone else I have ever seen. Quick, confident, good humored, but with no “side.” he has contempt for stuffed shirts. Playing a cagey game, he is nevertheless always on the aggressive. After seeing Cripps in action, one can understand why he is the most prosperous barrister in England even though a left winger and rather mocking of the interests he defends professionally. Now he is thrust into a strategic spot in British empire history. Instead of being overwhelnied, he is approaching it with all the verve of —say, & Hopkins, in earlier relief days, undertaking to spend billions overnigit.
He's Quite an Operator
IMAGINATION, AUDACITY, fast footwork and a rapier mind, make Cripps something new and refreshing in British affairs. Perhaps he is a potrtent of the new phase to come, when practical realfsm and adjustment to changing times will replace clinging to hollow traditions left over from days gone forever, Indiag leaders. themselves men of the new day, undoubtedly feel this in Cripps. This fact may be one of the circumstances that will save India, and bring it into the war as a real allied parther—in-
My Day
HYDE PARK Sunday —The trip by air to Boston on Friday afternoon was smooth and pleasant, and f was glad to have John Sargent with me.
I wonder whether PM is becoming to you as interesting a paper as I find it. There is barely a day when some article in it is not worth reading from beginning to end. Long ago, Louis Howe told me that a good newspaperman put into the first paragraph of his story all the essential news, because so few people ever read more than the first paragraph. Since the great majority of people never read anything but the headlines, I have always thought of what a terrible responsibility the headline writers cary. I alwags read at least the first and last paragraphs of anything which seems to me a really important story, But it is only now and then that one finds something which holds ones attention from first to last, not only because it fs well written, bit because it is on a subject of vital interest at the present time. On this trip, I also read Raymond Clapper's article in LibBrty about “Mrs. Roosevelt” It ik 0 ihe teresting to get to khow & stranger \
*
By Ernie Pyle
mile out on the deesrt and you can barely see the town. Mrs. Coffman used to walk 20 miles a day, just because she loved to walk, but she goes mostly by car now. She says she'll be glad when her tires run out so shell have to walk again. She feels better when she walks. Mrs. Coffman's devotion to the desert has been transmitted to her sons. Earl was telling me the other day about something that happened to him. Shortly after he was out of school he went to New York and got a job on Wall Street. The last war ended that, and he never went back.
It'll Be Warm Anyway
BUT LAST SUMMER he took an auto trip across the continent, and looked up his old Wall Street friends. He found many of them pretty threadbare, but some had gone on up to riches and the permanent life of high finance. “But good Lord, their outlook on life!” says Earl. “Worried and cynical and harassed. I never saw such gloom. Youd think nothing existed west of the Hudson. I had to drive clear to Tennessee before I could get it out of my system.”
Mrs. Coffman has not traveled a great deal although she did take a trip to the Orient seven years ago. She was enchanted by Japan, and can't quite conceive of how such seemingly nice people could turn out to be such bad people. She always wanted to see Europe, but never did. “Now it will be so sad I wouldn't want to see it for 20 years after the war,” she says, “and by that time I'll be in a better place.” I'm sure she'll get to the better place, but if
down there to spend the winter.
recipient evidently read the word “Registration” at the top of the notice and confused it with the draft. Back it came with the scrawled notation: “I am over 85 and therefore exempt.”
Double Troubles
C. M. (MOKE) DAVIS, L. S. Ayres’ advertising manager, had his ups and downs last week, and they were mostly “downs.” While at home one evening, he smelled smoke and upon investigation found his overcoat on fire. It was ruined. He had forgotten to knock the coals out of his pipe before dropping the pipe into the coat pocket. The very next day a new bed was delivered for his young daughter. Moke decided to see if it was a substantial bed, so he eased his 200 of so pounds onto it. Crash, bang! The bed broke in two and let him down kerplunk on the floor. . A former reserve officer who has just gotten a new army commission went right down to Block's and bought one of the most ritzy uniforms he could get. He put it on and stepped up to one of the store's mirrors, At that moment he saw an officer in front of him, and saluted smartly before he discovered it was his own image. It really happened. The gentleman is First Lieut. V. L. P. We promised not to use his full name.
Australia Bound
WHILE WAITING with her mother to hoard a plane for Washington, 5-year-old Barbara Young, 5235 Cornelius ave, watched one of those big Allisonengined bombers sweep in for a landing. Nearby stood 4 naval officer, also awaiting the airliner. Mistaking him for an American Air Lines attendant Barbara rushed up and said: “That's the plane I want to ride to Washington. Can we go oh that one?” The naval officer smiled, replied: “No, honey: your father's name would have to be MacArthur for you to get on that plane.” . . . In case you were too lazy to work it out for yourself, the engineer's name in that brain teaser Friday was Smith,
stead of. remaining a sullen pawn, dangling close
Suggestive of Cripps’ bearing in this difficult task was his answer to an Indian reporter, who asked why Amery, British minister for India, did not come along. Indians are bitter toward Amery, and the question was a touchy one.
naval and commando forces which
invasion coast Saturday left that great German submarine base a blazing nightmare of ruin, witnesses said today.
one year to repair the dock gate, the submarine moorings, the harbor installations, the power houses, the bridges and the key buildings which the British forces blew up, it appeared certain.
battle which started as they went up the estuary of the Loire river, there should be a mishap, I'll bet the hot place won't continued under a sky afire with scare her a bit. She'll have “the Hell hotel” running shells and searchlights and ended
within a week, and probably get all the rest of us| with great demolition explosions
countryside.
debris from explosions fragments showered down, small naval units exchanged fire
only 50 yards.
ning descent of the British on the German held port, witnesses said, that parachutists had been used.
the shore was
shells.
destroyer Buchanan, called by the British, the Campbelltown, rammed the key lock gate at 20 knots and the five tons of which it was filled entire dock gate.
of the St. Nazaire naval base because without it the basins used by submarines and other naval craft and for shipbuilding would be empty of water most of the day.
antarctic explorer, commanded the naval forces. Lieut. Col. A. C. New-
man, contractor, commanded the “special
service forces’—commandos.
doners with a mixture of Scotsmen, Welshinen and men from the northwest English coast.
boats neared shore for the attack, one of the Scots was found shedding his trousers for kilts which he had smuggled aboard. “Let me wear it” he pleaded, sented.
yesterday to a British port in a Yo CHEEr op Nn naval vessel which flew its ensign at half-staff.
correspondent with the expedition wrote:
RAIDERS LEAVE U-BOAT BASE FLAMING RUIN
Eyewitnesses Say Docks at St. Nazaire Knocked
Out for a Year.
By SIDNEY J. WILLIAMS United Press Staff Correspondent LONDON, March 30. — British
raided St. Nazaire on the French
eye-
It will take the Germans up to
Those who came back described a
and the
blazing rocking
fires
No Parachutes Used
In the raid, carried out and
while shell British
with the Germans sometimes at
It was only because of the light-
the Germans announced every man who made landed by naval vessels which made their way to
their objective under a rain of
Actually,
Witnesses said the old American
with the
explosives smashed
Vital Gate Destroyed This tital gate is vital to the use
R. EB. D. Ryder, 33, famous as an London building
a pre-war
Troops engaged were mostly Lon-
When one of the motor torpedo
and his officer con-
Fire Guns Until Last Part of the wounded came back
Gordon Holman, official British
|
“The Campbelltown came to her|
Cripps, without batting an eve, replied with per-| 4 while the navy men and com-
fectly straight face: “Of course you khow there is a seriolls shortage of manpower in England.” This brought a roar of laughter. Undoubtedly, some Indians appeared at Cripps’ press conference prepared to heckle him, but he suavely fenced them off.
Looking for the Right Spot
WITHOUT REVEALING the exact nature of the British proposal, Cripps made clear he was not here to negotiate but to try to convince all Indian groups that the war cabinets plan is the best for India that can be devised; and that he is not authorized to alter it except in minor adjustments. He also said he must leave in two weeks. Cripps obviously is trying to head off prolonged argument and confining himself to a selling job. He is banking on the fact that he is known throughout
During press remarks Cripps talked of the “mechunical and personnel” :djustments that would have to be made when “one government was taking over from another. Also he said he was conscious of two dangers that must be avoided: One, allowing minorities to get into a position where they could obstruct everything: second, allowing the majority to get into a poeition where it could override minorities ruthlessts. He is trying to work within these two extremes. Thus this slight figure, appearing rather like a dapper college professor, carries confidently on his shollders the white man's burden, looking shrewdly io : ae place to set it down so that all can shave e load.
By Eleanor Roosevelt
There are a few slight errors in fact, but psychologically, I am sure Mr. Clapper is right—made him dance because of my childhobd repressions. I hope when he returns from India, he will come and tell us of his impressions. I promise to be a good listener and not make him dance. There will be no newspaper dance this year, for like all other entertainments which are purely fot pleasure, it will be given up for the duration of the war, I enjoyed my short time at Wellesley very much, It has a beautiful campus and Miss MeAfee's home there is charming inside. The view is what impresses one most. Miss McAfee is one of the people with whom one would like to spend more time than a brief visit permits. I caught the hight train back to New York City very easily and ran into a group of sailors in the station who kept me signing autographs, while I waited at the ticket window to collect my accomodations. Back in New York City, I spent yesterday morning visiting the naval hospital and two friends who have been ill. After an early lunch, Miss Thompson and I came up to Hyde Park. There are few signs of spring as yet, but it was good to take a walk through the woods in the late deren and te have a quiet afternoon before the
Today i€ & beaittiful day ahd we shall not have sar GR i New York By AE une
from the deck straight on to the German landing stages which the Germans were sweeping with fire.”
had gone up the estuary in face of almost impossible fire.
lights swept the water and picked up the leading ships like daylight, and there was a ‘burst of fire.”
ohd the whole river was covered mdia as a friend of greater self-rule. by a fantastic criss-cross pattern of fire. The roar was deafening
last bocm barrier and as she did | go set a German anti-aireraft ship]
mandos manning her still fired their guns, Only when the flames spread
o the guns did those aboard run
He described how Campbelltown
“Suddenly,” he said, “two gearch-
Last Barrier Smashed «Then hell broke loose. In a sec-
“The Campbelltown smashed the
afire with her guns, Then she hit the dock gates. Ashore the explosions started as the commandos, landed from other craft, started their work. : Their mission accomplished, the survivors of the Campbelltown and the other commandos clamored into their boats and fled, while literally hundreds of German guns poured death at them at short range.
CONVOCATION SET BY SCOTTISH RITE
The Scottish Rite will hold a special one-day convocation April 18 to accomodate members whose war and defense efforts limit their time. The event will constitute the seeond division of the spring section. All degrees from the 4th to the 32d will be conferred or communicated. A breakfast at T a. m. will begin the day and confefring of degrees and a convocation dinner at 6:30 p. m. will be on the remainder of the program. In charge of the meeting will be Clarence R. Martin, thrice potent master; William W. Suckow, sovereign prince; A. Marshall Springer, most wise master, and James H. Lowry, commander-in-chief.
ORIO OFFICIAL TO SPEAK
Thomas Herbert, attorney general of Ohio, will address the Indianapolis Bar association meeting at 6:15 p. tm, Wednesday in the Bar
A. E. F. Parades Past Irish Don
key
An Irishman aboard a donkey-drawn cart is the lone audience as the A.
a cobbled street of a picturesque village “somewhere in Northern Ireland.”
shop signs.
Japan Does Its Best to Appear Calm While Fleet Rolls Back Pacific Front
Bob Casey, with the Pacific fleet, tells how the baffled Japanese attempt to pooh-pooh U. 8. naval operations.
By ROBERT J. CASEY Copyright, 1842 hv The Indianapolis Times and the Chicago Daily News WITH THE PACIFIC FLEET AT SEA, March 4 (Delayed) —For the past few weeks we have been looking at sundry spectacles of destruction of our own contriving—blasted atolls, sinking ships—and beading our horizons with fires and bales of smoke. Little things, our enemies the Japanese call these matters in of-
ficial reports, clouds no bigger than a man’s hand.
solemn discussions over the radio at night when their baffled air planes have gone home to some roost that we'll be smashing up tomorrow. And we are not disturbed by the tendency of Tokyo to minimize our painstaking effort. You can't expect such pers fectionists as the Japs to be satisfied with the mere destruc. Casey tion of naval installations on a mandated island. To count in the box score, apparently we have to sink the island. And so someday, perhaps— With things as they are and with full cognizance of the imperfections pointed out by Tokvo Rose—the she Lord Haw-Haw of the Son of Heaven, it would seem that the time had arrived for an inventory of these poltergeist activities of ours. Not to justify our existence perhaps— we do not have to do that in face of current returns—but to explain as far as possible to the folks at home just what we have been doing.
» » »
Front Line Set Back
AND OUT HERE on the broad bosom of the deep seems as good a place as any for taking inventory. We are revealing nothing to the enemy. They khow by some sort of oriental instinct what we have been doing. In the first place, with the recent attacks—on Wake and elsewhere—we have set back Japan's front line in the Pacific more than 1000 miles. Raids may be raids and Japanese howls about hit-and-run may, in some cases, be justified but this bit of truth you can take as the departure point for this discussion: There is no base in the mandated islands nearer than the Carolines where un sub can pull in for fuel, repairs and subsistence stores. where fleets of planes can be harbored, armed and directed. That, of course, adds up to a couple of thousand miles more that submarines and planes must
We hear their
travel to reach the same targets that Japan was aiming at in our sector a month ago. Repair of these harbors, fortresses and supply depots is not only heartbreakingly difficult for the Japanese but increasingly futile. It takes about six months to fix up a dock for submarines and a set of cranes and machine shops and power plants, and you just about get them installed when some morning, at the crack of dawn, a string of gray ships is on the horizon—get your hats, here we go again. # & 8
Hard to Write Off
SUCH ACTIONS as those in the Marshails and Gilkerts, Wake and the islands about New Guinea, if viewed merely as raids, would still be disconcerting enough to a nation short of steel and overtaxed for transport. The physical equipment of a big base—even if a lot of auxiliary shipping were not bound up with it—would be too much loss to write off unmoved. The life that gets wiped out in one of these smashes, when a level island without any protection above sea level gets swept by une countable tons of shells, of course is something the Japanese don't worry much about because they have always been prodigal of it.
But even so, it must be some
sort of problem to get a new lot of stevedores, machinists, artillerymen and the like trained for outpost jobs such as this. There must be important investments of time and money in these speciaiists, even if they are Japanese who are theoretically aching to pass out for the emperor. So count them in with the total loss. When you look at a couple of these islands, stark and deserted, you wonder if maybe Japan is not realizing that they are gone.
” ” 2
More Losses to Come
HOWEVER, the main trouble with the navy's Halloween program in the Pacific, so far as Japan is concerned, is that the first loss does not begin to be the last loss. If you are setting out to
HOLD EVERYTHING
association building. He will dis cuss “Administrative Law?
control an ocean like the Pacific, vou have got to make sure that nobody can come around and pull up your claim stakes. If you are to succeed in your plan of terrorism and convince the people of California that you have serious designs on the coast of the United States, it is not good theater to have your threat rolled back over you for a couple of thousand miles. And the worst part of it is that what happens once can happen again, and frequently does. There does not seem to be any remedy for it except to publish victory messages for home conesumption every time another air field goes west or another fuel dump starts on one of those week=long blazes. Casual observers of the fleet's cleandp routine may have been a little slow to grasp the signifi cancé of such corollary effects. You think when you see a thrivs ing war port, with all its array of wharves, airfields, storehouses, fuel tanks, planes and ships shooting up into the still blue air in little black bits, that you have seen enough to rate the operation definitely successful. You are right about that, es« pecially when you have had to trade in so little to get so much. But the ramifications of the attacks began to be evident when the Japanese themselves took the lead in advertising their importance, ” o 2
Jap Bleats Give Clue
JAPAN'S BLEAT ahout the Marshall fiasco, Japan's rush to get in first with the bad news, did more than any bulletins of the navy department to convince the people of the United States that action in a lot of two<byfour islands that nobody had ever heard about before was actually relevant to the business of smashe ing Japan.
Japan's bulletins of losses ine flicted on the battlefleet gave in dication of how gravely the Son of Heaven's high command esti« mated its own losses. The collos« sal babble you hear any time you tune the radio to the frequency of one of Japan's makeshift portable transmitters among the smashed atolls, lets you know that worry over bites you can't chew is not confingd to the legions try= ing to swim the straits of Macis« sar. y In six weeks it has been made obvious to Tokyo that the United States not only can strike at will against even the most heavily held of Pacific outposts that threaten us, but just as easily could take them over permanently and, if they had strategic impor= tance as. say, springhoards for all« out attack, hold them against counter-attack. That being the case, as the tide of destruction moves westward it must be just as evident that parts of Japan itself are no less vulner= able. The choice of battleground in this proceeding rests entirely with us—and the time. If Japan is happy about all of this, then the signs are all wrong.
Carolina Blimp Base Ready Soon
ELIZABETH CITY, N. ©., March 30—~U. P)—A warning to Axis submarines on the prowl in At lantic coastal waters will be presented next Wednesday when the navy's new $6,000,000 lighter-thans« air base is commissioned here. The new station, first to be cons structed on the East coast south of Lakehurst, N. J, will cover several hundred acres in its come pleted form. Construction was authorized by contracts signed July 26, 1041, and now is virtual ly complete. Railroad facilities and a giant hangat are included in the layout, along with housing quarters for personnel, recreation and ade ministrative buildings. v
i
DUCE DEMOTED T0 MINOR ROLE ON WAR STAGE
All but Forgotten Man of Europe; Friends Even Joke About Him.
Copyright, 1942. bv The Indianapolis T and The Chicago Daily Sapols Times
SOMEWHERE IN EURO P RB, March 30—In the early hours of one beautiful May night in 1936, Benito Mussolini announced from the bal« cony of the Palazzo Venezia in Rome, that Italy had become an ems pire, and boasted of the successful war into which he had launched his country. On that very night, when general enthusiasm filled Rome's streets with clamors and vivas a little Italian bourgeois, commenting on Il Duce’s speech in his own simple way, told two foreign diplomats: “B® dopo (what later)?” Because he cannot yet answer the little Roman's question of 1936, Muse solini is an almost forgotten man in Europe's politics, hoping for a come
| promised peace,
Lets Hitler Run Military
Mussolini does not forgei his pres
‘war peace endeavors, and until he
can appear once more on the world's stage, waving an olive palm, he probably will maintain his seclusion
.4and let the reins of military affairs
remain in the hands of his former pupil, Hitler, II Duce's self-imposed silence about international politics can in no way be attributed to ill health. The riddle in Il Duce’s life today is a moral not a physical one. In appearance, his life is the same as before, but only in ap= pearance. He is still the same early riser; he still goes for morne ing rides, and he still shows the keenest interest in the daily police report made by the chief of his [intelligence service, a function res | calling the first dictator, Napolee on's, morning talks with Fouche.
Charm Is Broken
Noticeably absent from the long | stream of Mussolini's visitors are | newspapermen. | But the declaration of war un { France, that “knife in the back” of a sister country, has broken Musso= lini’s charm over his followers. The fight wilh France was never popular and real disappointment appeared when the way, instead of lasting three weeks, had to be waged against another enemy for an unknown length of time. Il Duce’s hope that the conflict would involve no risks for Italy was a bad mistake. Peoples, nowadays, do not appreciate “mistaken” leads ers. instead of the expected fulfill ment of Il Duce's sparkling promse ises, readers of the Italian newspa= pers find nothing but a black successioning of food rationing decrees, tribunal sentences, announcements of longer working hours.
Even Joke About Him
Graffitos decorate the walls after blackouts, Jokes on Mussolini are found on formerly reverent lips. Mussolini, this clever commercial traveler for fascism, does not travel any more, even in his own country. The passing of the popular Duke {of Aosta, the only member of the |Savoy dynasty who was a Fascist |at heart, was a hard blow for Il (Duce. Against the increasing press tige of King Victor Emmanuel, the duke was Mussolini's only trump card, as the king's succession, since 1020, must be approved by the Fase cist supreme council. ; Two years before this war started, Mussolini explained the evolution of Italy to the pro-Fascist writer, Rene Benjamin, thus: “Every political regime passed through three phases: Exaltation, which prepares; installation, which strengthens, and finally, decadence. Fascism will come to an end, but I will have been its exaltation.”
* WAR QUIZ
1—=Picture shows the deccration awarded United States air heroes, [Tt is bronze in the form of a cross on which is superimposed a foure | bladed propeller. | On the reverse |side are inscribed name and rank of recipient, It is suspended from a moire ribbon with stripes of red, white and (blue. Do you know how it | differs from any other decoration bestowed by our government? 2-The Royal air force has been blasting away at the Ruhr ree gion in western Germany. Because lof vast air fields? Munition works? | Steel mills? Factories for produce tion of oil from coal? Airplane face tories? 3—The fact that the Japs have a foothold in the big Dutch East Ine dies island of Sumatra will not afe feet American daily life because 2008 can no longer expect to import Sumatran elephants, rhinos and tigers. But one thing will be sadly missed. Can you guess it?
Answers 1-—The Distinguished Flying Cross authorized by congress in July, 1926, is the only decoration bestowed hoth by the army and navy. 2-=The Ruhr is one of the Gers= man centers of steel mills and ams= munition plants. J-=Sumatra grows a special tobacco leaf much favored as a wrapper of fine cigars, 4