Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 5 May 1942 — Page 9

i. Editor's Note: Ernie Pyle is in poor health and is ‘taking’ ‘#8 rest. Meanwhile, The Times, following reader's desires, is reprinting some of Ernie’s betterknown colamns.

% COVENTRY, England, February, 1941.—We walked through a street today that was a no man’s land. Utter destruction lay on both sides. One side had been BHO: houses, the other side a warehouse. Now des were just piles of broken brick. ' We turned into an alley that had been cleared. .A jumble of bricks had been pushed back from the line of the alley, and a little picket fence built around them. THe fence was newly painted green. . - Back in the alley we found J. B. Shelton. He is living in a brick lean-to about the size of a double bed. It used to be a washhouse, and it has a fireplace at one end. : “J. B.” hunted around for a couple of hoards and laid them ‘across Boxes for us to sit on. The debris we had Just'passed used to be J. B. Shelton’s house and office. In: fact,- he had owned four houses in a row. They all make one big heap now. * J.-B. Shelton is a gase. He is not very young, except in enthusiasm. He wears leather leggings, and a funny kind of celluloid collar with no tie, andl an old cap. He laughs and talks, and it is hard to get him stopped.

“Up and Down All Night”

. HIS LIFE INTEREST is archaeology and for years he has been digging up old Roman relics around ‘Coventry. He says the blitz bombs have unearthed Wasa things for him. . ‘You'd think: you were in a Harvard lecture room

pe =

By Ernie Pyle

instead of standing in an alley in Coventry where you can’t see a whole building in eny direction. Finally we got him shunted away from his archaeological talk and onto the night of the disaster, “Where were you that night?” I dsked. “Where was I?” he said. “I was right here, right here in- this alley, running up and down all night long.” “My house was already’ afire, so I just tried to save the stables,” he said. His five horses were tied in their stalls in a frame building running along the ‘alley back of the house. “All night I was running up and down the side of these stables, like this, throwing water on the boards. I got the water out of that open tank there. “Every once in a while a new place would catch. I'd get it out, and then the hay would be on fire. “Around midnight I got the horses all out.- They took it fine. I had sacks ready to put over their heads, ‘but only had to do that on one of them. I took them out two at a time so they wouldn't be scared. I got them all out and tied them to trees in that open space back there at the end. Then I had to come back and go after these fires again.”

“Say, It Was Wonderful”

“SAY, IT WAS HOT there, ‘mister!” Shelton said. “Sparks were falling just like rain. See all these holes in my old coat? That’s where sparks fell on me. “When I'd hear a big one coming I'd go down like this.” And to illustrate he dropped flat on his stomach in the cold mud of the: alley. :

“The noise was terrific,” he said. “All night

‘long the planes were diving right down on top .of

us. That warehouse there was all afire, and the sparks were a-flying. Say, I'll never see anything like it again. I wouldn't have missed it for anything in the world. Say, it was wonderful!” And I suppose that if you have the divine gift of looking fully upon life and serenely upon death, such a night really would be wonderful.

Inside Indianapolis By Lowell Nussbaum

MosT OF THE Statehouse big shots went to thie. Kentucky derby Saturday and, being human,

eouldn’t resist’ hazarging a bit of change on the results. | They watched another more experienced Depiocratic “biggie win consistently on some of the roger early races, so they asked his adL ame "Vice on the main event. They took his tip,'and now they're hardly on speaking terms with him. The horse he 'advised—Apache—ran 11th. . . . During a test in one of the Bell Telephone first aid classes, the class members .were asked if they had seen any accidents or otherwise had a chance to use their newly learned knowledge. “Also asked was what they had done abouit it. One student wrote: “Yes, I saw a man badly ‘hurt. I was in front of a doctor's office so I turned hit’ over to ‘the doctor.” Lucky victim.

Mon Bites Dog Dept.

: WE DON'T VOUCH for this one, but it comes to. us on pretty good authority. According to the yarn, a Fuller brush salesman called on a woman (we have her name) living out on Sutherland ave., gave her a sample brush and the usual sales talk. He. didn’t sell her an order, but SHE sold HIM a cemetery. lot. | ‘We. understand she’s still waiting for him to come back and make a payment on the lot. giv Four women had a bridge party the other night and they really played. for blood. You see, the prize was ‘five: pounds of sugar. The winner, after receiving envious congratulations, said that she fhought. she’d go right home and make some fudge. “+ + Add pet peeves: Hearing the telephone jangle while, you're out making a garden, dashing into the ad itp: aii feet, lifting the receiver and hear-

ashington

: WASHINGTON, May 5.—It isn’t that the more aggressive. New, Dealers: have suddenly become hard-hearted and callous when they advocate drastic Fepigseive measures such as compulsory savings, and aio Wage: jsenses; and war consumption taxes, or sales taxes if you prefer the harsher term. The New Dealers still believe social gains are as basic objective of government. But they are realistic enough to know that unless this war is won there won't be any social gains at all—noth“ing but social losses. Furthermore ‘they know that unless we have ‘the nerve to do the hard things necessary now to run this show and keep it under control,” we won't have a chance of controlling tion after the war and will be caught helpeconomic chaos. best friend of social gains 'now is the one ‘is willing to do whatever is necessary to make it possible*fo have social gains after this’ war. The rea) €nemies ‘of social progress are those who ‘refuse 10 face y the actual situation and who perSin in’ living ‘in’ a dream world of the past.

2 He Just Like Firing

PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT says all of us will have to lave our standard of living. There is only one way: we can translate that language. We can transate it only into lower real wages, heavier taxes, er clothes, fewer luxuries, handing over -of ever F sums’ ‘of our earnings to the government. +15 no- way to make a lower standard of ga: down: easy. It isn’t fun. ‘It’s like firing a Nobody has found a way to make it painless. # gourse Marough all the years employers have ht wa ges because they wanted to hold on possible, They have urged

sy the situa less in:econom -The

Manday —We left the counnee y supper last night because I have day here. It began at 10:30 with the ~ the'- campaign / ‘for selling war savings stores. The campaign is to encourage ‘careful buying and to iniv duee- ‘customers : to: take part of their change in defense stamps. » .-After-that was over, I went to . the annual meeting of the board

-of. directors of the United States

committee for the care of Europ-

ean children. This lasted a long .

“while. One or two people - eame to lunch. In the afternoon I at‘tended a meeting of the committee of the Washington bureau of the Intertiational Student Sery-

il and indus.

.tape” at.the courthouse.

ing a sweet voice say: “This is the Blankety Blank Fur Co. Have you any fur coats you'd like stored?”

Parades Bring Rain

A SURE WAY to break a drought, it seems, is to schedule a big parade. It happened during the Shrine convention last summer; it happened during Army day, and it happened again Sunday. Let's keep it in mind this summer when the grass starts scorching. .'. . By the way, some of our readers think it’s awful the way many of the men kept their hats on as the flag went by in the parade, and also the lack of applause for the soldier boys marching past. It's a far ery from the enthusiasm of World War 1. . | . Theodore Davis, assistant state forester, is to report tomorrow at Mitchell Field as a second lieutenant in the air corps. He’ll prove an especially handy man to have around in case of any forest fires, as one of his duties with the Conservation Department was organizing to fight forest fires. , . . Fred Shick, the lawyer, finally got that lieutenancy in the air corps

-and reported at Miami Sunday.

Those Red Tape Blues

A CERTAIN state official is grumbling about “red He called the treasurer's office yesterday—the ‘deadline for paying property taxes—and asked how much his taxes were so he could mail ‘a check.. They said they were- toe. busy to look it up but suggested he send them last year’s receipt, plus a signed check with the amount left blank. He declined (a) because he didn’t want to let the receipt get out of his hands and (bh) because his “pappy done tole him” that signing a blank check is a worrisome thing. Now he’s stuck with the penalty for delinquency. ... An employee at the Allison plant reports the guards out there are tight= ening down—giving employees closer inspection as they enter or leave the plant,

By Raymond Clapper

The Roosevelj; administration would have nothing to do with either of those causes because. it was interested in reviving the economy by improving the standard of living and encouraging wider distribution of buying power. The administration still looks toward the day when its purposes can be resumed. But to win the war and to have any chance of coming out of it with an economy that won’t go to pieces under the impact of the change back to peace conditions, we have to put ourselves through a good deal of self-discipline now,

The Two Sides of It

IN THIS A nuniber of New Dealers find themselves at odds with Secretary Morgenthau.. When he

opposed the sales tax before the house ‘ways and]:

means committee last March 3,. Secretary . Mor-

genthau, among numerous objections, cited these: It falls on scarce and plentiful commodities alike; it

bears disproportionately on low income groups; it en-|five and 10 miles an hour. The area [fom the ranks. Lieut. Gen. Joseph croaches harmfully upon the standard of ‘living; it|showed signs of having been |Stiiwell, American deputy to Chiincreases prices; it stimulates demands for higher shelled. A mile ahead white smoke nese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-

wages; it is not easily collected.

‘On the other side, the answers made are that war|was nothing to do but to go on. We|the' war depart

needs require discouraging consumption to save manpower if not- materials; that while the sales tax bears disproportionately on lower income groups the

bulk of ‘the inflationary purchasing power is going|some men started to run and scatter |department. has established ironinto. that group, and furthermore the income taxX|and there was an explosion and clad regulations for commissioning

takes a disproportionate share of the higher incomes, thus balancing the inequalities; that if the sales tax tends to lower the standard of living, it is in line with the government Policy- of forcing down the standard because of war needs; that price-control

margins will coritrol the pyramiding tendency which{ishly but .at least we had lost that |30 can be commissioned except in would cause trouble in the absence of price control. glum feeling that one has when |extraordinary circumstances, and To guard against the tendepcy to retain such, one is obliged to Cross a shelled {only those past 30 who have special

taxes after the war when we might again be needing to stimulate mass purchasing, the idea is to adopt “war consumption taxes” limited to the duration of the. war and proceed from there, depending on what

the conditions are.

By Eleanor Roosevelt

present time might make women feel their‘work was not needed. As a matter of. fact it is because localities have met their needs through such voluntary participa-

tion as this, that. a national compulsory registra-

tion" is at present postponed.

The decision was made by the various bureaus

concerned’ with the federal security agencw I was interested to find they felt that .if the need arose, compulsory registration of woman power could be put threugh very:quickly. - 1 Glassification of skills and of needs for the var-

ious ‘parts of the country could be accomplished

within three weeks. This speaks well for the efficiency which has been developed in the employ-

ment service and in fhe bureau of women in in-

dustry.

We have talked a good deal about the development of day nurseries, nursery schools and recreational facilities for older children, but I do not know Fess Fl jo $a Shis has pes actually scsempliiind Shraughc, }

out the

ASHES OF WAR SMOLDERING IN AFRICA DESERT

Dust Sweeps Over Gazala Front to Hamper Nazis Strafing Roads.

By RICHARD MOWRER

WITH THE SOUTH AFRICANS ON THE GAZALA FRONT, May 5. —Compared to certain areas away back in the rear, this place, near the front line, is quiet. . In the rear enemy bombing raids have picked up since the full moon has come around again to nullify the blackouts. But here the situation is called. “quiet” which means that aside from artillery duels, ground-strafing by fighter planes and armored-car engagements with enemy patrols, things are pretty humdrum. The flies are not really bad yet but the sandstorms are. When the sandstorm. season ends in June the fly season will be in full swing and exasperating, Perhaps desert fighting will be in full swing as well Both the allies and the axis are putting on weight and organizing their communications.

Dust Is Penetrating :

Meantime, the erratic wind sweeps up loose dust from the ground, blows it into men’s eyes, ears, mouths and hair, into their

and their clothes. When the wind comes from the south,” it scorches the eyeballs, makes the throat dry and thirsty, and sticks stinging particles of sand to perspiring bodies—that is the kamseen. It lasts maybe three days, sometimes more, and there is nothing anybody can do about it. Sometimes a trip %o this area is pretty exciting as a sign on the road miles back testifies: “Beware of low-flying alretnit” it warns. The enemy is going in heavily for road strafing these days when the weather is clear, but we saw nothing. We got a puncture and while the wheel was being changed, we strolled off the road over the scrubby desert where there are plenty of remmants of the winter's battle.

Letter Among Casualties

In the pocket of the faded greatcoat of an Italian lieutenant we found a letter from a girl living.in Calabria: “I am willing to correspond with you,” she wrote. “I am mystified how you obtainéd my address. Y must be proud of being called up to}; arms to defend our country against the fanatical English, My brother is a prisoner, He was on the glori~ ous warship, the San Giorgio, . ‘1 hope we will soon have peace with victory”—and here the writing had faded away in the weather, : We wondered if the lieutenant was dead or a prisoner. When the car tooted and we left the dead letter and the faded greatcoat and went back to the road. Farther on we came upon the final result of an air battle: The wreckage of a MesaE, A “Kittyhawk did. it,” a South African farmer in uniform told us. “I watched the fight and buried the Germans afterward. The Kitty chased him right down to the ground and gave him a burst within a few yards of the ground. The German crashed and exploded, I think the flier was struck through

{the shoulder blade, the way he

looked. He still had a ring on his finger with ‘Rosemarie, 1940’ written on it. My farm is not far from the sea between - Capetown and Dur-

Rough Track Slows Pace

We went on, left the road and followed a desert track so rough we could not do more than between |

spouted out of the ground. There

There were no further then, a couple of

went on. explosions; hundred yards to the left of us,

white smoke again. “It landed back there to the left,” we told the driver, who of course, they were blasting. “Those aren’t shells.”. And we laughed a bit fool-

area at.five miles'an hour. .A South African ‘armored car had Just brought in two German prisoners. We saw them marched in under guard. They were: less than 30 years old, husky and expressionless, and carried blankets and a few belongings under their arms.

HOLD EVERYTHING

AJAX LOAN

food and drink, into their blankets] t

| Capt. Walter Eokiert of ‘the tate

granite.

BACKS CIVILIAN COMMISSIONS

Patterson Protests Bill Which Calls for Prior Military Training.

The war department today de[ended commissioning of men di-

a . congressional attempt to make prior . military - experience a prerequisite for new officers. Undersecretary of War Robert P. Patterson told the house military affairs’ committee that the army’s supply and - distribution system would have “utterly broken' down” if ‘experts in thousands of technical ‘fields could not’ have been commissioned directly from civil life. He: declared the ‘war department was unalterably opposed to an amendment to the army pay bill, sponsored by Rep. Charles ‘A. Faddis '€D. Pa.), to prohibit commissioning of men without military experience. “He said that problems of procuring weapons for supplying a modern army “involve special skills in which the country is rich but in which the army in peacetime is

Three Exceptions Listed

He explained that for commis sions. in the combat branches ‘only enlisted men who have: served in officer’s candidate schools now are eligible, There are only: three exceptions to this rule, Mr. Patterson added. Gen. Douglas MacArthur is authorized to commission men, directly

shek has the same authority and; t retains: ‘the right to commission world war veterans for combat service. b Mr. Patterson added that the war

technical men for non-combat commands. No person can be commissioned, he said, who is about to be called |S€ for selective service. No man under

qualifications to be passed on by anh army examining board.

GAS CHANGE 0. K’D ELWOOD, May § (U. P) ~The Central Indiana Gas Co. has been authorized to change from artificial to natural gas and the new fuel

WASHINGTON, May 5 (U. P.).— Hib

rectly from civil life "and “opposed |

The new road will replace the Burma road, useless since the Japanese captured Rangoon and Lashio, in bringing supplies into China. Here the road builders clean up before their evening meal,

GERMAN VEN MONACO RADIO

Country of Monte Carlo Fame Is Said to Fear Seizure by Italy.

By PAUL GHALI

1942, by The Indianapolis Tinies The’ Chicago Daily News, Inc.

BERN, May 5.—A radio station intended to broadcast in various Mediterranean languages, especially "Arabic, under the control of a board of directors with Monacan, German and French membership, is

Copyrikht,

‘reliably reported to. have been

erected ‘in the tiny principality of Monaco, famous for its Monte Carlo gambling casino. Lengthly negotiations preceeded the three-cornered agreement, it is learned, and the prince of Monaco gave. permission to construct a sender after personal consultations with the Germans. No Italian has been admitted. to the board. although Italy is reported to have pressed demands to this end. Since the defeat of France, the prince of Monaco has courted German protection against possible seizure of his small state by the Italians. In return for consent to the installation of a radio station Monaco is guaranteed its relative independence in Hitler’s new Europe, with continuance of the reign of the present. Grimaldi dynasty,

mp ——————————— BEAVERBROOK. IS HOME LONDON, May 5 (U.P P.) —Lord Beaverbrook, British co-ordinator of Anglo - American production and lease-lend supplies, arrived at a southwest English port today from

will be piped into Elwood from Texas and West Virginia fields soon. tk

Arrested on

Joptba Crouch, operator of a “farmers’ outlet market” at 38th and Illinois sts., was taken to Pontiac, Mich., today by ‘Sheriff Spencer] Howarth of Pontiac to face trial for|" issuing a fraudulent check. Crouch, who is said by police to have rented a house from Edsel Ford near Pontiac last year, waived extradition. His attorney told state police that Crouch wished to return to. make restitution for the alleged bad: check.

the United States.

North Side Market Owner

Check Charge

the use ‘of: his: household employees from =a "Pontiac dealer, using Mr, Ford’s name. The automobile reportedly was. sent to the residence

without iio question, to Capt. "Eckert,

: — came to Indianapolis and

opened the market. He is said to have become indebted to a meat packing company and the automobile was attached for the debt. The attachment proceedings brought to light the fact that

These new pictures show how 150,000 heroic Chinese—including women and children—are building a new highway across the Himalaya mountains, the world’s highest. The highway must be chipped from From footing like this 7000 workers have alréady fallen to their deaths.

Yl tribesmen still wear long hair, but their work on the new road belies the feminine look.

{| STRIVE TO END UTAH CRASHES

Restrictive Air Policy Likely After 51. Die in Salt Lake City Area.

By CHARLES T. LUCEY Times Special Writer ¢* WASHINGTON, May 5—Five plane crashes costing 51 lives in eight years in the Salt Lake City area have convinced U. S. civil aeronautics officials that-the time has come to clamp down drastically on operations in tkis “graveyard of transport flying.” Able, experienced pilots:have piled up their passenger loads in the Utah mountains with such recurring frequency that. a new restrictive policy is believed. likely, regardless of the immediate causes of the ac-

sons. ‘Officials could not predict what form new government flying orders might take. But they said itis not impossible that the civil aeronautics

"| board will recommend a new airport

be found to replace the. present Salt Lake field, so close to the jagged Wasatch mountains that a relatively small human or mechanical error can send a transport smashing into a peak. The range rises 10,000 feet out of the desert.

The Death Log

Another drastic step would be to eliminate landings by instrument and permit only contact landings— those in which- the pilot comes in seeing everything before him. Here, briefly, is the history of the five Salt Lake area transport trageies: On Feb. 23, 1934, a Boeing airliner took off from Salt Lake City in apparently satisfactory weather, quick ly, ran into bad weather and smashed to bits. against a mountain. Eight were killed. On Dec. 15, 1936, a Western Air Express plane crashed 23 miles southeast of Salt Lake City. Seven died. On Oct. 17, 1937, a United Air Lines plane, unable to get intelligible radio range signals because of static, crashed at Humpy Ridge, 51 miles east of Salt Lake City. Nineteen were killed. : : ion On Nov. 4, 1940, a United Air Lines plane, due chiefly to malfunctioning of the guiding radio range, hit the mountainside a few miles out as it was coming into Salt Lake airport. Ten died.

Not Normal Area On May 1, 1942, a “United Air Lines plane, circling the Salt Lake airport to land during a storm, crashed into the side of Ensign peak. Seventeen were killed. “The record there means,” an air safety official said, “that we cannot consider the Salt Lake area as nermal, but as-one that has to: be watched all the time—we mus nurse every ship in.” ‘Without ‘a survey, the experts could not estimate how readily an airport could be found in that area which would have less difficult obstructions than the Mount wall.

STUDY TAX BILL ' WASHINGTON, May 5 u. P).— President Roosevelt ‘discussed the pending tax bill with his congres-

a cratic: Loader Ale Senate Dem-

cident Friday which killed 17 per-

Believe FDR Holds Back 4

On Demands for Effort ; Needed to Win War,

This is the second of a series 4 of articles by Mr. Stokes, who is’

on a tour of the Midwest.

By THOMAS L. STOKES Times Svecial Writer

THE MIDWEST HOME FRONT, May b5.—More leadership, leadership, franker leadership from Washington. To a traveler in the Midwest thas

Armee.

seems to be what most of the peos

{ple want most. They feel increase

ingly that total war, requiring &

revamping of the whole economy 3 and the co-operation of every man,

woman and child, also requires strong direction — that someone must ‘say clearly what it is neces sary to do. : The chief criticism of the presis dent and congress is that they haven't got down to brass tacks on

the business of winning the war,

that too much energy has been wasted on non-esseritials, that sine gleness of purpose isn’t sufficients ly developed, that frankness is lacke ing. “We Can Take It” Recently confidence seems to have

been bolstered somewhat, Shiuy by

reports that war production is at: last hitting a real stride. If I interpret correctly the things these folks are telling me, a cole lective‘ letter from them to" Presie dent Roosevelt would be along these lines: “Trust us. We "want to win this war. We know it's going to be

tough.. All we ask is to be told

what tq do, and that we be told the facts about what is going on.

“Give us the truth. We can take

it. You told us the facts in another tough war--the war against depress sion—and we helped you to fight that war. We'll do it again.” The picture of the president that you get through Midwestern eyes is

of a man holding back demands for effort, hesti« |

all-out sacrifice and tating to be frank. There is an atmosphere of suse picion about what comes out of Washington which is not good te see. The Midwest is uncertain just what to believe. ganda, and can see no need fi This all started, perhaps, in the exaggerated ‘rifnors-that got around about the extent of the Pearl Harbor disaster before the truth wag made known.

Plain Talk Preferred

The people realize, when they stop to think, that there may be sound military reasons for the de= lays of news. : But, if so, they'd ap= preciate having the president hime self explain just what is involved, Their impression of great cons fusion in Washington has been heightened by such things as the “reports to the nation” by Archibald

MacLeish’s office of facts and figs

ures, which gave Pollyanna treats ment to certain situations, espe cially the rubber ‘shortage, later revealed by the Truman committee and other investigations to be worse than the country had been told. The Midwest, in short, feels that it isn't nearly so stupid as some officials in Washington seem to think, . They think there's too much waste in Washington, and too much spending on non-war activities.

And they don’t like the reports of

fancy profits on war contracts. Theyre still talking about the

Mayris Chaney incident. Nothing that has happened in Washington

caused more stir out here than the

employment of Mrs. Roosevelt's protegee, at $4800 a year, to direct children’s dancing for civilian dee

{fense. And many of them still feel

that Mrs. Roosevelt would do wel to stay out of the picture. Above all, they want equality burdens and sacrifice in this ug

That guaranteed, they would take

cheerfully any hardships necessary to win. share alike--farmers, labor, busie ness, industry and the government itself.

anti-aircraft battery. The +37 . = millimeter gun is used on low hi ing enemy planes. It is c ly automatic and costs. 018,000.

10,000-foot| / T=

They want everyone to

It fears propas “Hous J

J {i

Why