Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 6 April 1942 — Page 9

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Hoosier Vagabond

PHOENIX, Ariz, April 6.—It's a long jump from Palm Springs to Phoenix, but when I jump, I jump big. Now I'm headed east. I waited as long as I could for the Japs to bomb California. If California gets it now, theyll just have to take it alone, for I can’t keep running back every time somebody blows a siren. a Business is certainly good this year in the desert. I had intended stopping over a few days at Yuma, but couldn’t even get a place there to lay my head.

It was the same story in Phoe-

nix We got in after dark and couldnt get a hotel room even though I had phoned ahead. Finally I just sat down in the lobby of the Hotel Westward Ho and started to cry. So they took pity and dug me up a room in a private club. In Phoenix and Tucson, they say the tourist season has been as good as ever—maybe a little better. Many people have come to the desert who otherwise would have gone to California on their vacations. And, too, lots of Californians have come inland—just in case. They say that two-thirds of the traffic these days is eastbound.

What's It All About?

COMING ACROSS, I picked up a soldier, and asked him how far he was going. “Just as far as vou are,” he said. “I'm going to New York.” I said, “but it'll take me about twe months to get there.” “Well. Tl get off at Dallas.” the soldier laughed He was on six-day leave, hitch-hiking from the

Inside Indianapolis By Lowell Nussbaum

BOB TAYLOR, director of the Social Service Exchange, sends us a few of the unusual names on the exchange records. The exchange is a clearing house for case records of Indianapolis social agencies. It

has on file a half million names of persons who have received some service from these agencies in the past 60 years. Among the surnames in the records are: Ditto, Box, Sunnyfield, Hitchbarn, Dish, Hailstorm, Pickenpeck, Roundtree, Turnipseed. Suggestive of eating are the following surnames: Pickle, Nut, Pepper. Oates, Pills, Ham, Strawberry, Munchmore, Casebeer and Pancake. One poor fellow was named Outhouse. Some full names: California Doll, Cupid Stork, Long Chin (Chinese), Easter Lily, Peachy Fry and Holy Bible. Indians who have turned up seeking assistance here include: Tiny Bear, Rainwater, Full Moon, Flying Eagle, Little Bird and Spotted Horse. But heck, who are we to be laughing at other people's names. Maybe ours sounds just as funny to them.

Smell That Rubber

WELL BET Leon Henderson would have been apoplectic if he had been here vesterday. It scarcely looked like we were having a rubber shortage. In fact. there were more cars on the street than most people could remember seeing for several years. Getting to Municipal airport to look over the British Spitfire plane was a harrowing experience. Many gave up and turned back to town after getting within a mile or two of the field .. . Note to youngsters who dropped note from the monument Saturday: Your note was picked up in front of the federal building by our Mr. Tim Tippett. Written on the back of a Girl Scout cookies sticker, the note read: “This paper was dropped from the monument circle tower on April 4 1942 at 2:30 m. aft.” . . . A man who said he was Edmund J. Rocker and that he had been the one to

From India

CALCUTTA, April 6.—Complaints of India’s commercial interests that the British have retarded Indian war production give a distorted picture. Informed independent sources, qualified to judge. say there has been substantial expansion, even if inadequate and below what might be expected of such an enormously rich and populous country. The big deficiency is in heavy industry and metals. But in textiles and similar industries there is large production, especially in uniforms, shoes and camouflage nets. The silk industry is being expanded for parachute manufacture. These industries are almost fully on a war basis. Shipping shortage and long supply lines make it necessary to provide more materials here for united nations forces. The big hope of any Cripps settlement is that it would make this possible. It would also stimulate support for the American technical mission in helping to plug the gaps in Indidn production. It is true. as Sir Shri Ram, president of the allIndia industrial employers association, said the other dar: “We cannot produce a single internal combustion engine. or tanks of any size.” There is difficulty in replacing machinery parts, which must be shipped from England now.

Some Progress Already Made

BRITISH LABOR party leaders criticize this old failure to develop supporting mechanical industries in India. Modem war requires production bases at many separated points to reduce the transport problem. The British government now realizes this and is working on it. Conferences are being held for this purpose. including one at Delhi for expanding small industry.

My Day

HYDE PARK, Sunday.—I had an unusual experience Friday. I lunched with Mrs. Kermit Roosevelt with no other objective in view than to meet a few friends. It seemed almost incredible that we were not gathered together to discuss some particular subject, instead of just enjoying each other's company. Immediately after lunch, I went over to the Brooklyn naval hospital for a brief visit with our son, for he hopes to be out of the hospital by Sunday and to go to the country. The doctors want him to be in the sun for a little while, since country air and sunlight are good antidotes for any germs Later, I caught the train for Hyde Park and spent a peacful evening at the cottage. Yesterday morning, we visited some of our neighbors. All families lead uncertain lives these days. They are constantly trying to adjust to new conditions. One of our neighbors depends on a gas station and a small lunch room with guest rooms above to make her living. In winter she weaves very beautiful homespun material, which she sells to established customers and passing motorists in summer. Less travel on the road, more difficulty in getting wool, may make both of her occupations more hazardous during the coming years.

By Ernie Pyle

coast to Dallas to get married. He figured he could make it in 48 hours each way, Which would give him ‘two days at Home. When we crossed the Colorado river at Yuma, army sentries stopped us. They stop only cars in which service \men are riding. They wanted to check my soldier's furlough papers. They were okay, so the guard said, “All right, roll up your windows and cross the bridge.” When we got on the Arizona side and stopped at the agriculture inspection station, I asked the inspector why we had been told to roll up our windows. “Oh, it’s the army,” the inspector said. “I've never been able to find out the reason.” : I asked several people, and nobody knew why. Maybe I'm just too dumb to be roaming around loose like this, but I can’t make any sense out of such an order. If anybody knows, I wish hed write and tell me.

Penry Wise and Pound Foolish

THERE'S ONE Hollywood item still left in my system, before we get too far away. A friend of mine out there recently saw Gene Autry, the western star, and found that Gene is due to be drafted in the early summer. And this friend spoke as follows: “Gene’s ready to go, but I think it’s foolish for the army to take a man like that. Here he is paying the government a quarter of a million a year in taxes. When he goes in the army that revenue will stop. Don’t you think that’s penny wise and pound foolish?” The question stopped me. I'd never even thought of anything like that before. Is that a sound theory or not? It does seem sensible at first, but there must be a flaw in it somewhere.

suggest changing the name of Rising Sun, Ind, phoned to say he had wired President Roosevelt the suggestion that the present war be called the “Universal War.”

More Ulcer Cases

THERE SEEMS to be quite an increase in the number of gastric ulcer cases these days. Some medical men say it’s a direct result of the war with its attendant tension and worries. Reports from London, they say. tell of greatly increased numbers of gastric ulcer cases in the bombed areas. Moral: Get “unstrung” and quit worrying. . . . It’s reported that Dean Arthur M. Weimer of the I. U. school of business administration has received a captaincy in the quartermaster corps. . . . Bud Hill of the Meridian Book Shop has enlisted in the navy as a yeoman and is to report for active service in a few weeks. . . . Some people having oil furnaces are worrying about what they're going to do for oil. One oil man says there's not much need for worry. In fact, he said, there's more gasoline in this particular area right now than they can find storage space for. And have you noticed the solid trains of tank cars carrying gasoline to the east coast to replace tankers drawn into the transocean service?

Scrap Metal Galore

IF UNCLE SAM ever runs short of scrap metal sources, he might cast an eye on metal advertising signs—small and large—on the country highways. He would find tons and tons of them, many of them advertising products no longer available. A Muncie physician says he counted 660 signs between Muncie and Indianapolis. , , . The library reports a request for “something oft hell.” The reference: department recommended Milton’s Paradise Lost. . . . Priorities seem to have invaded even the dime stores. Several stores have removed their big rolls of insulated wire, such as is used for floor lamps, etc. One store still displays its rolls, but has them wrapped in cellophane. Above the rolls is a sign announcing you can have wire if you have a priorities number.

‘By Raymond Clapper

Some objection is made by Indian interests that the guaranteed quotas are too small. The British protably will agree to take more. Supply orders now are double what they were last year. As we complete our tooling-up job in America, we must think about supplying tocls for other areas, including India. The largest single steel mill in the British empire is here. It is not huge compared with some of our biggest mills, but it is capable of expansion. So are India’s chemical and aluminum industries. Already some progress has been made. Almost 100 firms are making simpler kinds of machine tools, and training men in precision work. Groups have been sent to England for training as precision machinists, foremen and supervisors. India has a plentiful supply of labor skilled in handicraft, and adaptable to machine work. If India is going to be utilized to full value, such things must be done in increasing volume.

It All Adds Up -

ONE VITAL QUESTION raised is the defense of eastern India. particularly the Bengal-Calcutta region, where heavy industry is concentrated. This area is nearest the Japanese advance. If Burma is completely occupied, this area will be under severe threat. Therefore, two things are necessary: One, adequate defense of eastern India; the other, decentralization of war industry westward to the Bombay and Karachi areas. The .apane¥e also threaten the bay of Bengal, Ceylon, the Imdian ocean and Madagascar. If the Japanese should succeed in establishing bases at those points, then united nation lines to India as well as to the Middle Fast and Russia would be under severe attack—if not severed. So we come back again to the necessity of holding the main middle east supply line against the Ger-man-Japanese pincers this summer.

By Eleanor Roosevelt

Another neighbor, whose husband had retired from the navy, had to see him return to active duty some six months ago. She heard from him the other day from the west coast after a long cruise Now she is preparing, if he should be there more than a few days at any time, to take the long trip with her daughter for a glimpse of her husband in between cruises. Fortunately, she has most of her family living on the west coast, so a long visit will seem a pleasant reunion. ' I have not been over yet to see one of our other neighbors, whose boy was on a destroyer last autumn. I am most anxious to get news of him. Another boy I am interested in is the son of one of the other men who works for the president. He is in the now and I want to have news of him as well. I read a charming story last night about a little brother who tried to follow his big brother into the army. It reminded me of a little boy who came to see me here last autumn to talk over his brothers enlistment. He looked so worried that I felt quite sure that the first break in any large family was never easy for the younger boys to bear. There is a little more sign of spring here this , and there is certainly plenty of work

‘ |damaged 48 large Japanese ships

‘State Clubs

TOLL GROWS IN U.S. UNDERSEA WAR ON JAPAN

Subs in Nippon Waters Have Bagged Total of 48 Ships.

WASHINGTON, April 6 (U. P). —American submarines, operating in Japanese controlled waters of the southwest Pacific, have sunk or

—most of them warships or naval auxiliaries. The submarines, sometimes operating almost within sight of Yokohama, and ranging throughout the Japanese-dominated China sea, have carried out their dangerous raids almost unchallenged. The cost to the United States so far has been one submarine, the Shark, missing and presumed lost. Announcement Saturday that seven more Japanese vessels have been sunk or damaged in Asiatic waters brings to 26 the number of Japanese vessels of all kind sunk by submarines alone. Eleven others are believed to have been sunk, and 11 more were damaged and in some cases put out of action for weeks or months.

Here's the Box Score

Heres the box score on sinkings by American submarines as compiled from the navy communiques: SUNK: Transports, five; minesweepers, one; supply vessels, one; cargo ships, four: merchant ships, four; destroyers, one; tankers, two; freighters, five; passenger-cargo, one; cruiser, one; miscellaneous, one. BELIEVED SUNK: destroyers, two; cruiser, one; aircraft carrier, one; seaplane tender, one; transports, three; miscellaneous, three. DAMAGED: Carriers, one; cruisers, three; freighters, two; seaplane tenders, two; transport, one: supply ship, one; unidentified, one.

34 Warships Probably Sunk

Altogether, U. S. naval forces have sunk 69 ships including 21 warships, probably sunk 27 others, including 13 warships, and damaged 36 of which 22 were warships. These figures, compiled from navy communiques, include action by all U. S. fleet units—surface, submarines and air. Submarine action announced Saturday disclosed that American submarines in the southwest Pacific sank a cruiser, probably sank an-

other and damaged two seaplane tenders, a supply ship, a barge transport and an unidentified ship.

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MAP TOWNSEND ELECTION STAND

Meet Here Sunday: Congressmen Are Invited.

Indiana congressmen. including seven scheduled for indorsement for re-election, have been invited to address the pre-primary state convention of the In NN : diana Townsend clubs here next Sunday, it wa announced today by B. J. Brown, national directo for Indiana. Five Republi cans and two Democrats probably will be given § : the organization’s support, it was B. J. Brown indicated, including: William Schulte (D), first district: Robert Grant (R.), third; George Gillie (R.), fourth; Forrest Harness (R.), fifth; Noble Johnson (R.). sixth:

Raymond Springer (R.), tenth, and Louis Ludlow (D.), eleventh. “The conference will play an im-| portant part in the political ac-| tivity of club members during the coming campaign,” Mr. Brown said. Morning and afternoon sessions will be held in the K. of P. building auditorium, and a night session is possible. Committee reports, including the organization’s war effort, will be heard in the morning, with political discussions scheduled in the afternoon The organization also will study litigation growing out of appeals by welfare boards in a number of Indiana counties following a Marion county superior court decision that a 1941 state law eliminates all rights of liens against property owned by persons receiving state assistance.

OPEN TRIAL OF JUDGE ON MORALS CHARGE

VINCENNES, Ind, April 6 (U. P.) —Knox Superior Judge Herman Robbins today faced trial on an indictment charging a moral offense against a l4.year-old boy. Special Judge William S. Dudine, Jasper, will hear the case against the 41-year-old bachelor jurist who was indicted Dee. 4 on eight counts of improper relations with children. Three charges have been dismissed. Court officials expected several days to be required for selection of a jury because of publicity given the case. A special venire of 50 has been called in addition to the regular panel. Judge Dudine overruled pleas in abatement March 5 when Judge Robbins’ a ime-

ttorneys charged proper conduct of the indictment proceedings. -

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Tirpitz Is Biggest Allied Worry in Atlantic

Holed up in a Norwegian fjord at Trondheim, Germany’s new 35,000-ton battleship Tirpitz, biggest potential threat te allied war vessels and aid routes in the Atlantic.

No photographs of her were ever taken by the allies.

Peary Ancient, but Fought Japs Gloriously;

axis warship in Europe, remains a Above is an artist's conception of this sistership of the late Bismarck,

World War | Relic Was Easy Prey to Air Attack

This is the third of a series of articles in which George Weller reviews the ill-starred campaign of Java,

By GEORGE WELLER Copyright, 1842, by The Indianapolis Times and The Chicago Daily News, Ine. FROM AN AMERICAN NAVY BASE, April 6.—~Without bearing any of the burden or expense of World War I, Japan was able, through the short-sighted, anti-imperialism of American diplomacy, to acquire by treaty and to fortify Pacific bases, which should have been Amer-

ican. Today, appropriately enough, the United States navy, by fight-

ing the Japs with outdated war- °

ships before unleashing the full navy program, is forcing the Japs to dispose of World War I, whose winnings they have already collected, before dropping upon them the giant Pacific network at present in the making. ‘ Meantime, many American warships sunk in the Indian ocean and the Java sea, are old-line craft of 1918 vintage. Such sinkings are hailed with the same banzais in the Japanese press as though they were brand-new battle wagons still greasy from 1942 shipyards. Among these Versailles victories by Japan may be classed the loss of the Peary, a lend-lease-sized destroyer, which once plowed the stormy waters of the North sea in the days when the Pershing and Sims were closing their careers. The Peary’s crew fought in this battered tin can from Cavite to the northern Australian archipelago, before ldsing her under a final cascade of Jap bombs.

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Fought on Red Hot Decks

SOME OF THESE super-annus-ated destroyers have simply disappeared tracelessly. The Pills= bury, which vanished south of Tjilatjap, fell victim to overwhelming Jap forces, consisting of an aircraft carrier, several cruisers, destroyers and submarines, in the same waters where the unprotected seven-knot Dutch freighter, the last vessel to escape Tjilatjap, incredibly passed two days later, But the Peary’s history is different from the Pillsbury’s, although both left Cavite at about the same time, in that the facts are now known as the manner of her passing and something can therefore be recorded of the men who fought with their relic literally until the south Pacific waters closed hissing over her red hot decks and spitting guns. People were still saying “Hang Kaiser Bill” when a bottle was cracked upon the Peary’s bow and the can was given the name of the arctic explorer. The first of the Peary’s four aerial bombardments occurred at Cavite in December, on the day of her baptism of fire, 27 bombers pounded Cavite for about 40 minutes, nearly unopposed. Her first bomb was almost an unbelievable freak. It landed exactly upon the pinnacle of the foremast—a shot

| as peculiar as a hunter shooting

off the tip of a rhinoceros’ horn.

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” ” Escaped Being Scrapped SPLINTERS PENETRATED the whole bridge, smashed the gun directors, broke the search-

lights, pierced the ventilators. Burning fragments ignited the decks. It was a combined fragmentation and incendiary bomb. Although several members of the crew were casualties, by another pecularity, more was killed elsewhere, in the general bombof the navy yard, than aboard the destroyer. The old lady was saved this time by the bravery of the crew of a nearby minesweeper, who threw hawsers aboard the flaming decks. Naval advisers in a group now voted nine to one that the oldtimer be scrapped. The officers. speaking for the crew, pleaded successfully for one last chance to allow her a crack at the Japs. Ten days of 24-hour labor by the crew, after their casualties were filled, made the Peary sea= worthy if not battle worthy. Her fathometers were gone, meaning that she was starting the tortuous inter-island voyage to Java without anything to measure depth. Her degaussing apparatus was gone, meaning that the magnetism of her hull was still’ active, making her susceptible to mines. And in the first deep blue water she reached, her submarine listening apparatus--the indispensable ears of the can— would have to be thrown overboard because it was unfit for use. The old girl had nothing much left but guns, torpedoes and square-jawed crew.

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Cat and Mouse Game

IN THE EXTREME northeast= ern Celebes, the Peary was dis covered, early one morning, by a Jap four-motored navy patrol bomber. Able to travel at only 27 knots, the Peary’s men knew that a warm day lay ahead. The Jap bomber sent out signals summoning other patrol bombers from neighboring sea lanes for what looked like easy kill. Eventually, radio calls brought three more four-engine bombers and two Dornier torpedo planes. Then began a game of cat and mouse. It was 2 o'clock in the afternoon; the weather was sunny blue and clear. The Japs knew that it was impossible for the Americans to receive help of any kind. The time for deliberate attack was virtually unlimited and they meant to use every minute of it. Flying at a carcfully unsuicidal height above the Peary’s maximum machine-gun fire and guided by the foaming white wake which nothing can camoufiage, the Jap muscle men made their first run over the Peary. It was slightly off angle. No matter. One at a time the big bombers

HOLD EVERYTHING

© COPR. 1942 BY NEA

TN

“This war is gelling preity tough, dear—no more

wheeled laboriously in wide curves and carefully began again. The Peary was madly zigzagging below, making white doodles across the ocean floor. But the second run, too, was slightly less precise than the Oriental executioners demanded. The artistic Nips wanted something even more perfect.

Dainty Dish for Mikado

THE FEELINGS of the Pearymen, watching with taut chests for black pellets to loose themselves from the bomb racks, may be imagined. The Peary was a dainty dish for the Mikado and they wanted to serve it just right. “God, if we had even one modern anti-aircraft gun,” said the men on the Peary’s bridge. In all, the Japs leisurely made eight full-length approaches without dropping bombs. Little cold sweat was left in the pores of men and officers. “Let's get this over with,” suggested Lieut. William J. Catlett, of Canton, Miss, who was conning the ship. “They've got enough fuel to keep this up for ever. Let's let them drop their bundles and dodge them afterward.” Catlett was a well-known aerial navigator, having taught 7000 cadets at Pensacola and Corpus Christi and had been for six years an observer. So the next time the Peary gave the Japs a fair chance and, as quickly as a Tokyo diplomat grabbing a nest of Pacifie islands, the patrol bombers seized it. But to such perfectionism is a spoiled art. The Peary managed to veer away as what one officer called “two big, black planets the size of Mars” descended.

They Missed Again

OTHERS FOLLOWED, The nearest bomb splashed a geyser 100 feet away, but none hit. The aircraft commander now played his trump, an attack at low level by torpedo planes. The attackers carried two small torpedoes, a little bigger than cigarshaped gas tanks slung under the Jap navy Zeros for extra range. The torpedoettes seemed to travel almost without a wake. Two were launched by each plane, but all four missed. It took from 2 o’clock until 4:20 for the Japs to spoil their afternoon and leave the Peary unspoiled. Darkness came and although safe, the Peary was not quite herself. Operating upon the port engine alone, the Peary had a couple of hours unmolested, then entered

Banka straits—not the now fa- | narrows Off the eastern |

mous

shores of Sumatra but a tiny

strait bstween Bunakeng island |

and Cape Tango Pisok, near Menado, Here she was attacked by three large two-motored land bombers. A confused situation reigned in the area because the Japs had just bombed Menado the same day. The three bombers which attacked this time may even have been allied. Whatever they were, by glide-bombing one scored a near miss, damaging the Peary’s steering gear. Thereafter, with her single functioning engine, the Peary was steered by hand. Kenneth Quineaux, who was killed while firing a machine-gun against the planes, has been posthumously awarded the navy cross. Quineaux was the only death. Another seaman, who also sur vived the Peary’s later vicissitude, was Glen A. Fryman, who threw a smoking four-inch shell into the water, saving many shipmates, and has been recommended for the navy cross,

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Ship Is Doomed

. THE PEARY'S GREAT and final hour came when lying in harbor. The Japs had sneaked an aircraft carrier among the

Indonesian islands near Australia.

and sent over about 72 bombers with approximately 30 fighters.

The latter were intended to hold

off fighter defense which then existed only in the minds of the Japanese intelligence. Another American destroyer, which happened already to be under way unannounced by

But the Peary had no choice but to lie at the quay, the same as at Cavite. Dive-bombers beegan to peel off and plunge upon the Peary. In all, five 500-pound bombs struck the moored destroyer. One hit fell directly in which is known as the “steaming fire= room,” a single fire room cone tinuously maintaing steam while anchored. Another hit the fan tail where the already damaged steering gear was located. A fourth hit the galley deckhouse, The fifth hit the water off the starboard bow and it was this which wiped the bridge clear ~* officers and caused more damage than the four preceding ones. One painfully burned officer pleaded with the crew to throw him overboard. When the stern bomb landed four 50-caliber machine guns were hammering streams of lead skyward against the divers. When the smoke cleared only one meme ber of this gun crew was alive,

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Goes Down Firing

THE DESTROYER was fast going down by the stern. But a lieutenant in the Australian navy, who was watching the action from a culvert upon the waterfront— with eight depth charges piled above his head—said to your core respondent: “I saw the last American sailor continue to fire the remaining gun, with dead and wounded all around him. The water came steadily higher and finally began creeping up the deck. But the gunner kept firing even while the water arose over the base plate form. I saw him still at the gun controls—loading, aiming and fire ing, unaided—when the Peary went down, stern first.” The hero's name is unhonored, nobody now living had recognized him. Although their shoes were burned off, the whole crew in the steaming fireroom ran barefoot up the iron ladder and across the redhot deck combines and dove overboard. Finally, the Peary’s entire stern settled wearily, drawing the bow down and taking with it the dead and wounded whom it had been impossible to rescue from the flaming decks. It is hoped that the ship's bell can be rescued by divers and, aboard a new Peary, may witness the avenging of the old. As for the poor carcass of the old Peary, the navy says simply: “Let her rest. She was a good can. Her work is done.”

TOMORROW — Excellent aire dromes and no planes.

| FOREST FIRE CHECKED | SHOALS, Ind., April 6 (U. P.).—= A forest fire, believed caused by a jcareless motorist's cigaret along | Road 150 near here, was brought {under control yesterday after gute ting between 250 aiid 300 acres of second growth timber and pine plantings in the Martin county fore (est preserves.

® WAR QUIZ

se —

1—This insignia on the armband of a man in the navy suggests a quarter moon. Moon suggests ase tronomy, and astronomy suggests taking observations as to the ship’s location. But has the wearer got anything to do with | this? | 2—=Canada has recently reinforced troops en=gaged in defending the British eme pire. Were they sent to Egypt, Palestine, England, India? 3—President Roosevelt was once assistant secretary of the navy, Name two heads of state who ace tually served in navies.

Answers 1—The insignia shows the wearer |is a navy officer's cook, third class, 2—Canada has recently agumented I the already considerable number of | ouns helping to guard England against Nazi invasion. 3—King George VI of Great Brite ain served as a junior officer in the British navy in the last war, and

TE A A ea teu tS cua A Rg