Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 20 August 1942 — Page 15

Hoosier Vagabond

SOMEWHERE IN NORTHERN IRELAND, Aug. 20. ~You all know Bruce Bairnsfather, the cartoonist who Created Old Bill and the Better 'Ole in the last war. i Old Bill in his muffler and tin hat, his mustaches [ drooping over the edge of the shellhole, are known in bi every country on the globe, I suppose. Well, Bairnsfather is at it again. He is not in the army, but he

wears an American correspondent’s uniform. . ‘He is spending most of his time :now with the American § troops. He goes from camp to 8 camp watching maneuvers, sitting Band studying and sketching them _ inthe: fleld. Then he holes up in ‘a room at camp and finishes his drawings. ; Bairnsfather has an old, old home in & quaint village in southern England, but he gets home only about once in two months. When we're both in England later on I am going down to spend a week-end with him. : But: what I started to tell was that I have been staying inthe same officers’ hut as Bairnsfather, and he drew my picture. I didn’t-ask him to do it, either. He suggested it. He .had me sit still for an hour with my feet up on g desk, and then the picture was finished. If the pencil marks arer’t all blurred from showing it off by then, it will'go up some day on the wall of my den alongside: Low’s cartoon with the shellholes through it. ' If. the war lasts long engugh rl have a priceless art gallery all my own.

Pity the Poor Sailor— A ite

. 1 HAVE BEEN back again to see my navy friends fat Londonderry. I pulled in all unannounced one

stormy afternoon. Actually it was almost like getting back home after a long trip. At Derry I went aboard one of the famous British corvettes for lunch. A corvette is small and ugly but mighty good. You can hardly find your way about

Inside Indianapolis By Lowell Nussbaum

OLIE JOHNSON, our city engineer, asks motorists in general (and us in particular) to be patient about the temporary. roughness of streets where car rails have just been removed. It can’t be helped, says Olie. The ‘city is using the full capacity of its asphalt plant on the work but still can’t keep up with the crews removing the * rails. They can't slow up the rails removal because that would interfere with the production of light and medium tanks for our armies. The city, you ‘see, has guaranteed a certain local foundry 200 tons of the steel rails a week. The rails are melted up and recast into tank castings. Thus far, Olie says, the program of removing 35 miles (more than 5000 tons) of old rails is about one half completed. For our part, we're willing to be just a little more patient. : :

- It Pays to Gripe

GRIPING GETS RESULTS—at least sometimes. ‘We had an. item a couple of weeks or so ago. about how the nurses out at St. Vincent's were griping because they had. to wear black stockings until graduation, whereas the nursing aid women started out wearing white. Well, they got results, we hear, and “now even the beginning. nurses wear White. “hosiery. Nice work, girls. . . . Several days ago an officers procurement office was: opened by the army in room 416 of the federal building. And we're told, they're already booked up sqlid for several weeks with 15 minute interviews. Looks like almost nobody wants to be just a ‘plain private. . . . County Clerk Charley ‘Ettinger got ‘a letter the other day from a perfect stranger who ‘used . to live here but now lives in

Washington

WASHINGTON, Aug. 20.—War production figures for July should be coming out soon and indications are they will show up rather well. June was a bad month but in July some lines.went ahead of schedule. One gets dizzy in the din around here. But so far as I can shake down the essential ‘ facts the production job is going well but not as well as it could. We can feel pride, but not complacency, in the achievement. With that said, the defects can be emphasized without getting = out of focus. The defects are seri- - ous. They will tax all of the drive and ingenuity that Donald Nelson has. He knows it. He will need a lot of help. First attention is now going to raw material shortages. Our war plants ean chew up more materials than will be available in the last half of this year. Steel, for instance, will be several million tons short of needs. . A decision had" to be thade as to how to spread it. Instead of spreading it thin over the ‘whole program, the program has been broken down into groups. ¢+ Pirst come. those fighting weapons needed this year by American fighting forces. ' Raw material sufficient for those ‘needs will be supplied no matter what else Suffers, and -a’lot else will suffer. - You may see some idle war plants. But that will be a sign that the material ‘which they otherwise would use is going into fighting weapons needed now.

Squeezing the ‘Fat Out

SECOND, WHATEVER material is lett over from the immediate needs for fighting equipment will be available for the bare essentials of the civilian economy. That doesn’t mean morale stuff, or things to make people comfortable. It means repairs for locomotives and freight cars, for mines whose copper or nickel is urgently needed.

My Day

HYDE PARK, Wednesday—I read a letter reprinted in one of the magazines this morning, from a man whose usually very successful tourist motor camp was deserted because of the war. He had been asked Bo Joins Witt 5 group ie Urgh upon songfess sume relief by the government for his group -during the war period. Instead. he responded that the government should be told to thik only about winning thé war, and he, as his contribution to the War,_should te. to meet bis. own problems.

the deck through all the depth charges lashed around. When they let a batch of these go it must seem as “though the father of all upheavals is on the warpath. The men on ‘a corvette get a pretty good Jolting every time they dump a batch of depth charges. . A corvette ‘carries all kind of life rafts, but they seldom get used. For a. corvette is so small that if it is torpedoed the whole ship 1s usually blown up and everybody killed. The skipper was a man of Youngish: middle age. He commanded a big: Atlantic’ passenger liner before the war. It was shot out ‘from under him early in the war, and he floated on a raft for six hours. Since then he has been on corvettes. He says life has actually been quite dull in the 18

months he has been conveying with corvettes. Hel

has had only three neemy that 5 brushes with submarines.

How the British Navy: Works

IT IS HARD for Americans to get the various insignia of British naval officers’ straightened out. So

after my visit to the corvette a friend was explaining|

them to me. . - The British navy is ‘divided into three types, referred to in slang-as the regular navy, the wavy navy and the crisscross navy.The royal navy is the regular, pérmanent navy and

its officers wear gold braid in a straight line around

their sleeves. The royal naval volunteer reserve is made up of amateur yachtsmen, wealthy business men, gentlemen of title and what not. Their gold braid is a wavy line around the sleeve.

The royal naval reserve is made up of professional}:

seadogs—merchant skippers, fishermen, real deepwater men. Their gold braid is in two thin bands which keep crossing each other, zigzag fashion. To get around to the. point of all this, the three classes of naval officers are jokingly described in Britain as follows: In the royal navy the officers are gentlemen and sailors; in the wavy navy, the gentlemen “who. try to be sailors; in the crisscross navy, sallors Who try W be gentlemen.

The letter read something like this: I wonder if my wife ever got a She hadn't, Charley

Pennsylvania. “Dear ‘ Charley: divorce—sure hope she did.” found.

It’s a Nice Present

LITTLE DON AUTEN, son of Mr. and Mrs. Dick|

Auten, 769 N. Wallace ave., got the nicest kind of a present on his sixth birthday Tuesday. It was a baby sister. Name? Nona Louise, we think. ... Harry Harlan, 2619 E. Northgate, reports at Boston next month’ as a naval lieutenant (je). . George Saas, who dislocated a couple of vertebrae "while playing shuffleboard on vacation in Michigan, is home again, recuperating. It had nothing to do with his old Boer war injury, he insists. , . . E. A. Tapscott, former

advertising manager of The Times and. now ‘with the}.

Knoxville Journal, is back in town: visiting friends for a week or so. . . . Francis Brosnan, of the Indianapolis Insurance "Co. agency, reports today: at the Great Lakes naval training station as'a lieutenant 8).

Mysterious Markings

THOSE PECULIAR markings on High School road between Westlake and Road 40 have ‘aroused ‘the curiosity of a lot of people, including Vera: Johnson, 2062 Park ave. The markings have different numbers. They run something like this: P.:O. T. 162: plus 14.0,

Vga

At the county surveyor’s; office, we leap: theres: no

njystery about it. . They're just surveyor's mi tablishing’$he center. line of the highway in preparation for some road improvements. The P.O: T. stands for point on: tangent. The figures: indicate they are 16,200 .feet—plus 14 feet—from the point. of beginning. Now you know. . . . A: strip of weeds has been. mowed along the north curb line of 38th st. east of Keystone, making it easier for people to stand while waiting for the bus.

BR Raymond or

It means chlorine for water systems to prevent epidemics. It means only such materials as are ‘needed to prevent a breakdown behind the lines. Third on the list come those important but secondary needs. . New locomotives, new freight ®cars, extra equipment which would be desirable ‘but which can be sacrificed if necessary. That is the order in which raw materials will be made available. Expediters are being assembled to check the flow of these materials, to see that they go out in accordance with this program and only.in amounts currently required. The job there is to squeeze the fat out of inventories, to be sure that no stocks of short materials lie ‘around Waiting for future use.

The Controlling Potton |

CLOSELY RELATED to this is the scheduling of ; the flow, so that the expediters will know exactly how much of a given material is needed at a givén plant and when. Germany has only 5 .per :cent of the world’s nickel and gets along. - Our side has 95 per

cent of ‘is. and still is’ short. “The trouble 1s bad _ management of the supply. This problem has’ been

long neglected, and we are now "Sufiening,. being corrected.

Another thing is that American and’ British war production must be looked at as one.- Take steel

again for illustration. If we send unfinishéd steel to England. instead of making it up into war: ‘weap-

It Is

‘ons here, we lose the scrap—averaging about 15 per

cent of the tonnage. We are short of scrap, and can ill afford to lose that amount. Yet unfinished steel can go over as ballast and therefore. does. not take up cargo space. Cargo space. is the tighter bottleneck. So the dilemma. is ‘resolved in favor

of sending as much steel-as possible in. ballast to

save cargo for other finished war’ material. The object is to get the maximum of war: “equip-

ment -across.

That must always be the controlling tactor, :

En Eleanor Roosevelt

‘There must be thousgnds and thousands of peonic, men and women, who: are doing their bit for the: ‘War by readjusting their way of living. . They thought they would never have to change. They were settled fo life, and then the war changed everything. = Another woman writes me. from the southwest that she is going to move her two children into a ‘nearby town where she ¢an work in a war industry, for she cannot give them proper medical care on her husband’s’ navy pay. On the other hand, I must acknowledge that T've had létters. from people who Seem to be beaten by

. their problems.

. One young woman writes me’ that ‘she has a job. |, | Her baby was born after her husband left; but both She ang ti’ haby Ste Well aii] spuieatly Afie i vot

there.

ie S. soldiers stationed at ‘lands colony of Surinam (Dutch

‘and. the smoke merging. Ba

sleeve towed by an army plane.

5—Units of the 133d company west spent long hours of labor in as shown above. struction and demolition since in upon to do both.

one of our bases in. the NetherGuiana) pass the hulk of a Ger-

‘man freighter scuttled off Paramaribo in May, 1940, in an Stiempt to block the channel. The attempt failed.

. 2—What: appears at first glance to be a man from Mars walking around in a. cloud bank is mn reality a member of the chemical ‘warfare service at Langley Field, Va., making his way through a ‘es-| smoke screen. The unusual:effect is the Fost afelouly dn the sky

$<-Wearing a sombrero “as a protection ' Sgaitast the blazing Egyptian sun, Prime Minister Churchill, left, is pictured at the British embassy in Cairo with Field Marshal Jan Christian Smuts, premier of the Union of South Africa, during their meeting which preceded Mr. Churchill’s visit to Moscow.

- 4—Aerial gunners completing their. five-week course of intensive training. The final examination consists of Hisiling down the target

of engineers in the Pacific Northbuilding a: bridge then blew it up

The units are trained to work rapidly at both eon-

asiual Wistars hey Wille salled

HAY PART OF DIET FOR AEF

Powdered Alfalfa Will Give Troops In. Australia

Lots of Vitamins.

‘WASHINGTON, Aug. 20 (U.P). — Reports from. Australia . that troops ‘there are going to eat. hay. didn’t cause any raised eyebrows around the quartermaster corps today. : “Good idea,” was the way the suggestion was characterized. American soldiers in this country don’t eat hay—they save it for the mules. But in Australia it may be different. What the boys in Australia. will get, according to reports from Can-

I berra, is some cured, finely ground

lucerne, known in this country'as alfalfa. Inclusion of it in. diet for soldiers was said to have been recommended by the food council It is rich in vitamins A and C. Army subsistence experts said the powdered lucerne would be very

[stir to the dried ground grass

which is processed commercially in this country andi can be obtained by anyone who thinks he needs it in his diet. Menus Carefully Planned Army experts carefully plan menus for the troops so they will have balanced diets of natural foods, with the necessary vitamins

flour and lemon powder, but no other reinforced synthetic food. It is felt that a proper balance can| be obtained in. this country from natural foods. The army won’t go into particulars shout. rations. sent abroad. However, experts sald it ‘would be practical to reinforce a ration with powdered lucerne. | It can be put into’ soup or other seasoned

foods and you'd scarcely notice it.

UNCONSCIOUS AFTER CRASH

make a tremendous hubbub about

,|creation department’s annual pag-

PERD, Ind. Aug. 9.30 10.22.58 > edo

By LELAND STOWE

MOSCOW, Aug. 20. — In both Great Britain and the United States there ‘will be a. great temptation to

the - Churchill-Stalin ‘meeting and to interpret the Moscow conversations. as equivalent ‘to. a major allied victory on the battlefield. . The plain truth is that it would be wishful thinking to take an ex-|-aggerated view of ‘Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s visit here so far as immediate consequences are concerned. : The Churchill-Stalin ‘negotiations at most were only the: prelude to battles which have yet to be fought and yet to be won. On such information as is available to correspondents in Moscow, there is no indication that a more specific agreement regarding the opening up of a second front in western Europe was reached. There is no] evidence to justify the expiciation

that a:second front will be created any sooner than it would have been if Mr. Churchill had not come here. In the absence of anything concrete on this subject, it would seem highly advisable not to jump at any conclusions. Eventually, there be an allied invasion somewhere in western Europe, but it may not come in time to do the greatest good for the Russian army and the Russian people. It is safe to say that none of the British and American correspondents in Moscow is in a position to tell you what Mr. Churchill said to ‘Mr. Stalin or what Stalin said to Churchill about a second front, even if the allies’ interests did not prevent them from playing with military secrets. * This is why this particular on-the-spot. observer would prefer to report very calmly that the Church-ill-Stalin ‘meeting was certainly a historical event, but he strongly cts that the actual ithportance of Shibeven; will only be decided by

Stowe Warns Against Over-Opfimism As to Results of Churchill-Stalin Talks|

time’s measuring stick--not by the Anglo-American publics’ impatience to have something to cheer over right now. As for the Russian people, they will only evaluate Churchill’s visit] in terms of how soon British and American armed forces begin somewhere to hit the Germans so hard that the terrific and dangerously extended strain on the Russian army is relieved. It may yet require so. much time —or if it is not obligatory so much}. time may yet be wasted—before .a} second front of these dimensions is established that the tragic amount

of the Russian people’s ‘confidence|

in their British and American allies will be destroyed.

Whether or not Churchill ‘realized ;

the extreme significance of the Russian people’s state of mind in the months before he came here, it

can be taken for granted that: he U

has infinitely greater. appreciation]. of their legitimate anxieties now.

That, in itself, should be.» somdle

erable: gain, b

1500 CHILDREN CAST}* IN ANNUAL PAGEANT

. ‘Thvitations have been extended tol] Governor _Schricker, Mayor Sulli-| van, school ‘board memhers, high||

school principals and civilian defense leaders to attend the “city re-

HOLD JreRTHING

eant tomorrow night at the var 1S)

Memorial plaza.

"The cast of 1500 playground chil- : dren will start forming on the east||

and west sides of the fountain at

REFUSE. 0 INDICT

CHICAGO: ie

CHICAGO, Aug. “20 AU. P)— Col. Robert R. :

today he. ‘had antic

A rer whan].

declined . to indict his

SEABEE INTERVIEWS SET FOR. SATURDAY, Applicants - for the “Seabees,” navy - overseas construction outfit, will . be . interviewed .by -a visiting civil engineer officer Saturday’ at the ‘navy recruiting station in the federal building. © , Interested men’ ate’ urged: to re port to: the: station. not: later than tomorrow ‘in ‘order to-pass a: physe ical : examination - as- the engineer officer will interview only those Who have had their physical. tests. _ Applicants are. also. requested: ‘to

cation hy ine 7 of 8: stry on the|