Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 18 May 1942 — Page 1
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Entered as Second-Class Matter at Postoffice, .. Indianapolis, Ind. Issued daily except Sunday.
VOLUME 53—NUMBER. 58 MONDAY, MAY 18,1942
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"RAFT orpedoes Crack Ger
NAZIS
Taxi Ride Cosis Billions In Evil Rule of Inflation
Writer Was in Germany After Warld War; Learned Need of HCL Control.
(Price control starts in the U. S. today. William Philip Simms, whe experienced the chaos in Germany following the first World War, tells vividly what happens when prices are uncontrolled.)
By WILLIAM PHILIP SIMMS Scripps Howard Foreign Editor
WASHINGTON, May 18.—As my taxi drew up in front of the hotel, an extraordinarily ragged tramp stepped up and opened the door for me. Pulling out a roll of bills, I handed him $6,000,000,000. “Here you are, old fellow,” I said with a kindly glow, and he started to bow and say “thank you.” ~ But, catching sight of the small denomination, his expression changed to one of scorn. Tossing the banknote into the gutter, he spat contemptuously and stalked off. : For a second I was puzzled. In my small way, I had wanted to help. And six thousand million doliars seemed to me like a lot of money.
Then I figured it out. I had given the man 25 billion marks which at the normal rate of exchange, amounted. to. approximately
Erin lS ont v RETAIL PRICE CEILING
were worth about three-fifths of one cent. Housewives Will Pay Top March Levels Today on
For the place was Cologne, Germany. ‘The year, 1923. And Most Commodities.
German marks were 4.2 irlllion ‘to .the dollar. /The tramp had a right i“ be “gore. ‘The wonder is he didn’t sock me. SPThat 1s ‘what inflation can do ; to a country when a government allows it FE to get out of ¢ ‘hand, ih At the Armistice,a German with 100,000 marks a year was rich. If represented about p $25,000. rid ty By 1928, even “Mr. Simms =, 0. ho0rest didn’t bother to pick up the . change if it amounted to only a few millions. ‘At the Cologne hotel, I had to pay 25 billion marks for an envelope and a single sheet of paper on which to scribble a note. * Post-war inflation in Germany wrought more havoc to more human lives than the war itself. It hit everybody. Wages skyrocketed, but not nearly fast enough.
sands of .commodities—virtually all goods that Americans eat, wear and use—reverted today to their highest Mareh. level. Housewives were expected to find their cost-of- -living taking a tum for the “better” because April and May increases will be ‘wiped ‘out. The labor department Mdrch. 15April 15 index of retail prices’ indidated that the ceiling would establish a general level of about 115.1 per scent of the 1935-39 average: “We have drawn: the ‘battle lines ‘for the fight against a rising cost of living,” Price Administrator Leon Henderson said.
All Retailers Licensed
Every retailer, as well as wholesaler and manufacturer whose price ceilings became effective a week ago, is now a part of that front. “Every retailer,” Mr. Henderson said, “from the smallest neighborhood store to the giant merchandising organization is charged by his government with the duty of preventing thie breaching of a level of prices that must not be increased at any cost. Manufacturers and wholesalers must back up the retailers by lowering their prices where the retail margin is unduly narrow. “The big. thing for everyone to remember is that prices under the ceiling are going no higher.” Today: also marks the automatic licensing of every retailer. Each is subject to OPA action to revoke the license in’ event of violations of the general regulations. The price ceiling has been called * . (Continued on Page Five) °
COAL PRICE CEILING CLOSES ILLINOIS PIT
SPRINGFIELD, Ill, May 18 (U. P.)—A price ceiling on coa! effective today. caused immediate suspension of work at the Panther Oreek mine No. §-in Sangamon county and brought a protest from Governor Dwight H. Green, Mine operators said costs were too high to produce at a profit under the new production cost
ceiling. “The Panther Creek mine employed about 450° men.
8 8 8° 400 Billion Marks For a Boitle of Milk
I SAW GERMAN markets go empty because farmers refused to exchange their produce for paper money which depreciated so fast. _ The price of a bottle of milk rose to 400,000,000,000 marks—100 billion dollars at par, but at that time about 10 cents. The great middle classes and white collar workers fared even worse than laborers. Their. incomes were more or less fixed. They, too, had to sell their pictures, their rugs, their furniture and even their homes to keep "from starving. I saw ah old woman walk up to a bank window. She was lugging an enormous bundle wrapped in an old table cover. The contents of the bundle were paper marks, which she turned into the bank, and left carrying a wrinkled and badly soiled, but obviously precious dollar bill. * ” “ 125 Billions Without A ‘Thank You’.
“THAT OLD LADY,” an American resident told me, “used to own one of the finest homes in Berlin. Her husband left her a | handsome income. That's what runaway inflation ‘has done to a vast majority of the German people, rich and poor. At the Dusseldorf railway station, I gave my redcap 500,000,000,000 marks to carry my suitcase, ~The taxi to my hotel set me * back a cool trillion. My dinner that night footed up to $1,100,000,000,000 at the old rate of exchange and the waiter to « whom I gave 125 billion dollars at the same rate never even thanked me.
TIMES FEATURES on INSIDE: PAGES
Eddie Ash... . 6/Inside Indpls.. Carroll Binder 10|Jane Jordan.. 13 Business ,...7,14 9 <1 . 16 . 10 10 13 . 10 , 14 oe 10 .'10
MALTA BAGS 15 PLANES "VALLETTA, Malta, May 18 (U. P).—The week-end toll of axis sea and air raiders was listed today at
Mrs. Roosevelt 9 15 planes and at least one motor
Serial Story... 17 Side Glances.. 10
RAMICRAB EN) WASHINGTON, May 18 (U. P.) —| atte Retail prices on hundreds of thou-|
latter he
>
¥ » 8
ACE R
NEW JAPANESE
9 Enemy Planes Bagged; 3 Allied Raids on Base Revealed. MELBOURNE, May 18 (U. P.) — Long range American planes swept over thousands of square miles of
the invasion zones today searching for signs of a new Japanese invasion
| fleet assembling for a new major of+
fensive. There. was increasing belief that a new Japanese move was imminent and Australian quarters said United States and Japanese naval formations might soon be in contact somewhere east of Australia. y American and Australian fliers limited themselves entirely to reconnaissance work yesterday. Down Nine Jap Planes
A fighter plane shot down one of nine Japanese zero fighters which made a yain attempt to attack Port
Guinea. Anti-aircraft guns damaged two. Gen. Douglas MacArthur's com-
munique yesterday announced that = allied planes had made three raids|’
Saturday on the air base at Lae, New Guinea, and, in addition to destroying eight big grounded Japanese bombing planes, knocked out anti-aircraft batteries, ripped up runways and started fires. The Deboyne island seaplane base Hin the Souisiades, off - the southeast
‘Sydney held Australia’s first big scale rehearsal for invasion yesterday. Planes power dived on the center of “the city. Harmless bombs were exploded to simulate direct hits on buildings. Smoke flares represented fires.
that they had been blocked by debris. a Curtin Optomistic
Prime Minister John Curtin said|®
in a luncheon speech today that Australia might soon have to meet the shock of war on its own soil but that he had no fear of the result. “I say quite frankly that we. are stronger than we were,” he continued. - “The help Australia -has asked for has come and it 1s still coming. : ‘“We do not seeek to save this country at the price of losing any part of the common cause of the allied nations. We would, not save ourselves to deprive Russia of what she wants. We must not save ourselves by throwing someone else to the wolves.”
SOLOMONS IN FLIGHT
Japs Say 2 Plane Carriers Are in. Naval Group.
By UNITED PRESS : _ . Japan alleged today that a United States naval formation had ‘‘fled” w h e n J:panese reconnaissance planés sighted it about. 550 miles east of the Solomon Islands. The unreliable Vichy radio, elaborating on the report, said that a large Japanese fleet was now north of Australia and that an invasion of that continent was imminent. Japan said that its planes saw steaming westward . an American fleet including the 19 ,900-ton , aircraft carriers Hornet and Enterprise, escorted by cruisers and destroyers. “The sudden dispatch of the carriers into these waters can be con-
strued as indirect substantiation of
the United States’ loss of the carriers Yorktown and Saratoga in the battle of ‘the Coral Sea,” thé Japan-
ese Domei news agency sadi.
A ————————————————— HELD AFTER JEEP RIDE " WATERVILLE, Me., May 18 (U. P. Pllu. Bernard B. Butler, 26, was held: for army authorities today y drove an army
jeép here Brooklyn, N. Y.,
18) herd he was stationed, to. show his|
wife the diploma he won after training three months to become a
SAVE ON RUBBER IN og
N, ( ) ¥1 BE Gani me
with a
Moresby airdrome and harbor, New|
“ Fire fighters and first aid crews! van to the “bombed” areas, where|' streets were barricaded to indicate|
Get the Point, Hitler?
of the fuehrer's pants served as an inviting pincusion Gawer left carner in photo) was observed to be the mewest addition to the on President Roosevelt's desk in this photo. It was made on May 15 as the chief executive conferred with Mahmoud Hassan Bey, Egyptian minister. !
oh Ca 4 "Win
War Correspondents Just out of Reich Say Nazis
- Staking All in Attempt to Win in 249,
_ Since their arrival in Lisbon, United Prebs correspondents’ who a been interned in Germany and Italy, have been filing lengthy tehes on conditicns inside the. axis. Joe Alex Morris, foreign or “ot the United Press, has prepared the following eniagtuation:
By JOE ALEX MORRIS
United Press Foreign Editor : rene - MEMORANDUM TO AMERICANS: '’ pean » «The returns are in now from’ behind" the ‘ enemy lines. They tell the story of what has happened to’the people’ of Germany and Italy since Pearl Harbor and they show part of the:design for licking the axis. ’ These returns were brought out of a Hitler-riddén: Buzope by American newspaper correspondents who for years ‘reported ‘the deadly prelude to this war, risked their lives to tell ‘you of its opéning years and spent five months in axis internment camps’ after ‘wé gotin. They are men and women who were there ‘when i ppenty and knew what it meant. The thousands of * words that - haves come from these correspondents since . they reached Lisbon. as participants in the exchange of. diplomatic’ and other internees emphasize their confidence that the axis
: can be broken and defeated if American 2 and the allies will go all out.
\ 5 = . . Na 3
It Will Be No -Pushover
5 THE COMMON PEOPLE of Italy are sick’ of. the, rod War. Mr. Morris The Germans are under. an’ increasingly, severe strain. The conquered people of Europe are . facing firing squads day after day for refusing co-operation with the new order. . But don’t get the idea that it is.going.to be a push-over. ‘These American correspondents say there . is plenty of fight and power in the axis ‘war machine and that it is JO or never for Hitler; “victory at any price in 1942. That's why Hitler is now throwing. everything, he can muster-—in-cluding 3,000,000 men on ‘the eastern .front—into an attempt to crush the Red army and to cut the American-British supply line to the Soviet Union. The Nazis may have as many as 300 U-boats in the Atlantic riow. It is American war production that pushed Hitler into. this corner and, if it comes up to expectations, can keep him ‘there unless he Breaks the Russians this summer. {
What Total War Really: Means
pi T'S ABOUT AS far as these be Risin yin the next few manhs ite 8
I Nu fn Ist direct repart we Wil get. 16 ‘bekind the enemy lines by American newspapermen. ‘It is worthy of close study because it demonstrates how directly Sind how hard every German and Ifalian has been forced to fight the war; how great are the hardships they endure tg the nexibo (Continued on Page F . oppared
Skull Fracture Brings End
(Eddie Ash, Page 6) Chuck Wiggins—known for : in wo-fisted fights both in the ring| ville,
To Chuck Wiggins’ Creer 3
| PRINZ EUGEN 1S
‘ |Prinz Eugen were raked by cannon
3 -
I —————————
BRITISH CLAIM OUT OF ACTION
Four Destroyers Escorting Warship Alsc Raked
In Aerial Battle.
LONDON, May 18 .(U, P.).—Torpedoes loosed by British torpedo planes crashed into Germany's crack heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen during the night in a savage fight between a British plane fleet and a German naval and aerial force off the Norway coast, the air ministry asserted today. Four destroyers escorting the
fire “from four types of British planes* whica attacked the ships. Five German Messerschmitt-09 and nine British planes were downed in a series of ferocious dog fights over the cruiser. Seared - by bomb ' hits when it made the daring run with the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau: past the English channel coast from Brest to the Nortn sea, the 10,000-ton Prinz Eugen had“ géne' to Trondheim, on the southwest Norway coast. On Way for Repairs - There, while guarding against a British © invasion and awaiting a chance to attack the vital allied northern supply route to Russia, it had ' been damaged by a British Subinaring torpedo: | Apparently; the air ministry said, 5 {it was on. its. way te a dock yard in Germany for repairs when Brit: | -ish- reedmmiissance” planes’ sighted it yesterday, steaming southward along the’ coast with its ‘escort of destroyers and fighter planes. - A flash to the British costal comman sent a, fleet of Beauforts; Hudsons, Blenheims and tough Béaufort fighters to attdck the German formation, . with ‘orders to ‘centér on the Prinz Eugene. “The planes sighted it during the night off ‘the southern tip of Norway and attacked. "The ® air 'niinistry communique said ‘it. was’ probable that the Prinz Eugene had ‘been put out of commission for many months. Ship Seriously Damaged British reconnaissance photographs taken after the submarine torpeoding of the Prinz Eugene showed that it had been - badly damaged in its vulnerable after part. (On May 3, the admiraliy announced that the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, ‘both heavily damaged, were in German ports and would be {unable to put out to sea for many months.) The royal air force resumed fits daylight sweeps over . northern France today, continuing an attack: which started during the night when heavy explosions - from the occupied French coast shook the ground on the English side of the channel. During the night, the royal -air force apparently attacked objectives from Boulogne to Dunkirk. Two hours after midnight, heavy -and continuous: explosions shook the ground along the Kent coast. Hundreds of British and German planes crashed in fierce combats
A. F. vargied out four of the most intensive Sweeps of the spring.
Pact Provides. for. ‘Mutual
. Watoh Over ‘Canal.
. May 18 © . P)—
‘| chang (Paoshan) and drive upon
over northern Frarece. when the R.|.
U.S. TROOPS TO AID Wn i 2
- ‘be imminent.’
i Re LS NB TA AOA pl mA RR
Soviet Army Estimated at Nearly 1,000,000 Storms Through Blazing Villages, i Led by Fleet of 2000 Tanks.
By HENRY SHAPIRO United Press Staff Correspondent
MOSCOW, May 18.—A Russian army: estimated: oe nearly .1,000,000 men stormed through blazing villdges on the approaches to Kharkov today after et suicide squads of German parachutists and infantry reserves: rushed into battle aboard trailers drawn by Nazi tanks: Zig a An official communique said the Red “con to forge ahead” toward and, around Kharkov; ms Ftions. o which were reported aflame from: artillery bombs dment on the seventh day of Marshal Semyon Timoshenke's big offensive. ’ Russ Use 2000 Tanks
A fleet of 2000 or more tanks, including new 50:60 “land battleships” and American triple-turret tanks, and squadrons of Stormovik cannon planes were reported blasts ing open a path for the steady advance which already’ is. officially listed as having exceeded 40 miles in some sectors, The Russian forces, advancing over roads and: fields strewn with German dead and shattéred Nazi tanks, guns
CHINESE CRUSH [mio bo JAP SPEARHEAD
" [tured more. than: 300 vi Column North of E of Burma Rd.
towns and settlements: of them left in: oy ruins. ‘Wiped Out; Fear Thrust ~ From Indo-China.
by the Germans. - The German parachutists wire. CHUNGKING, May 18 (U. P.).— Chinese forces ‘have. “annihilated”
dropped behind the Soviet. lines and many were picked off by markse the reminants of a Japanese mobile column that penetrated north of
men before ‘reaching the { ground-= in a desperate attempt to halt a dis the Burma road in an attempt to outflank the defenders of Yung-
aps
astrous rout ‘of Adolf Hitler's broken divisions,” front line advices said. Hitler, it was claimed; was {acing his, worst defeat, on. the eastern front. Kol Paratroops are Stain Rh
Kunming, a Chinese communique reported’ tonight, The Japanese force was said to have been wiped out in a’ five-day battle in the Maliaopu Hung Shu sector near Lungling, 40 miles inside China's Yunnan frontier with Burma. Along the Burma road itmelf |¢ around Lungling northward toward Yungchang fierce. fighting was reported still under way.’ - China’s military leaders watched apprenhensively, meanwhile, indi-|. cations of a possible Japanese attempt to seize Kunming—terminus of the Burma road—in. a sudden| northward. drive from the -Indo-| ire China border,“ where heavy Japanese troop concentrations are reported.
On the War Fronts
(May 18, 1942)
MOSCOW-—Germans throw suicide squads of parachutists into battle four of Kharkov in an attempt to pre- mile strait o te th Shr, vent wholesale rout of Hitler's were making Pposit L broken divisions;’ Russians forge| ahead on 100-mile front; fighting forces ha rages inside Kerch' on Crimean L peninsula. LONDON — . British torpedo planes : blast German heayy. cruiser Prinz |. Eugen, attempting to escape from Trondheim to German dockyards| for. repairs, in. attdck on Nazi naval squadron off Norway; RAF} resumes sweeps ‘over’ ‘northern h France.
the rest with hand grenade, b and trench knife. Some were yoneh : by the sabers of Cossacks,
through blazing villagestand over the bodies of German dead.
tanks were nh, hese ‘was said, . Admit Fighting in Kerch
Crimea, fierce pty was a in
it was indicated that forces, pressed back t
CHUNGKING — Chinese ' gather forces against threat of Japanese seize
AYRES JOINS, AS 'NON-COMB/
7 N i against - HOOD RIVER, RIVER, Ore., M Australia; new naval: battle may PO —After : six weeks. LAUDS WAR. ON NAsuiNGTON, May 18. (U. P). n B. Somervell,