Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 13 October 1942 — Page 11

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3 2 RR DN

- “Hoosier Vagabond,

SOMEWHERE IN ENGLAND, Oct. 13.—“Field

BL is one of my favorites among the field ar- " tillery troops. He doesn’t know who tacked the nickname onto him, but that’s all he's ever called, even.

“by his own commanding officer. His name is actually Wilson 8. Tisdale, and he's a private from Kingstree, S. C. He ‘only went to school a year, because school was six es away and he was needed at home anyhow. ' He has been in the army

nearly two years, and he’s just:

getting s0 he can sign the payroll. But he’s a priceless soldier. He is an orderly and drives for one of the colonels in the regiment. . “Field Marshal” worships his colonel, and takes care of him like an old colored mammy in the movies. When they're out on field manéuvers, “Field Marshal” sleeps in the rain and puts his own pup-tent up over the colonel’s, 80 the colonel can keep dry. When he. makes up the colonel’s bed at night he leaves an apple or a Hershey bar on the pillow. The ‘colonel himself is a young man with a fine sensitiveness, who appreciates all the loyalty and honesty of this illiterate boy.

Their Tobacco Chewing—

ALTHOUGH “FIELD MARSHALL'S” parents are dead, he allots more than half his pay home to his stepmother. Because of some bookeeping mixup, hasn't had a cent of pay for three months.

7

But ‘His colonel ‘Keaps him in spending money out 4 nis own gost “They take care of each other all ri ‘Their tobacco chewing is the funniest thing. The colonel ‘figures it isn’t seemly for a high army officer ‘to-carry a plug of tobacco, so “Field Marshal carries it, and they both chew off the same plug. Or rather they did back in the states. They've run out .of chewing tobacco .over here, so now they're chewing Prince Albert smoking tobacco—out’ of Ye same can.

The Way These. Boys Are—

THEN THERE I8 Johfiny Green. Johnny is from Bluff City, Tenn. He talks a good back-country brand of Tennessee mountain-English: Johnny used to be & clerk for Montgomery Ward, | He is 5 feet 4-the shortest. man in the outfit. He

lives in the same hy vie the Pass boys, who are 6 foot 1, and they quite a Mutt and, Jeff combination. Johnny is one of these friendly, honest home-folks boys who are ‘the salt of the earth. We got to be good friends. - Yesterday Johnny had a pass to go on his first trip to London. But he didn't have a shilling to his name, so I offered to lend him enough for the trip. But do you think he'd take it? No, sir. He was afraid he might get transferred or have an accident or something before he could pay me back, and I never did get him to take if. And he didn go to London *' That's the way these boys are.

Inside Indianapolis By Lowell Nussbaum

ji)

THE WAR really is coming close to our civilian

: Population, now that: some of our eating places are

having to limit patrons to "one cup of coffee, And isn’t it awful how hard it is to find. a pound of your: favorite coffee at the grocer’s? Yes, sir, war. is hell. . And the prospect of gas.ra~ tioning, or something, is bringing out some queer looking automotive contraptions—short on looks but , long on gas mileage and good rubber. . . . The Indianapolis & Southeastern bus:line thinks we didn’t tell all the story the other day about one of its drivers getting the Victory honk from a driver he was passing. Bus lines, we're told, . are allowed to drive more than 35 miles an hour until Oct. 15. That's ' to give ‘em time to revise their schedules. . . ..Add signs of winter: The Columbia ub has put up its winter canopy from door to curb. And Beth Meyer, of the Butler Collegian, calls our

A adttention to the fact that BOTH the boys and girls

ut at Butler—not just the girls—are voting their ice of the person “with whom I would most like be caught in.a blackout.”

And Where Next, Stan?

AT YESTERDAY'S united war fund report luncheon, drive chairman Stanley Shipnes was introducing. the speaker. Said he: “Mrs. Moore was born originally China.” . In the rear window of Dr. Thurman . Rice’s car one of those new signs reading something like this: “Warning—Anyone changing tires on this car is NOT the owner. Call the police.” What'll you do if you Have a flat, Doc? . . . The expected happened while. workmen: were hanging entries in the Herron art museum’s new international water color show which opened Sunday. Director Wilbur eat examined a couple of weird entries by the Rusan artist, Wassily Kandinsky, and found them upside down. He knew because he found the artist's signature was in the upper left hand corner, They were entitled “Floating” .and “Double Affirmation.” The exhibit runs all.the way from the futuristics to conservative English water colors.

‘Washington

WASHINGTON, Oct. evidence of resentment in France toward the Vichy puppet government of the Nazis that this might be the time for us to come in by breaking off from the Laval government.

13.—There is so much

French labor shows a good deal ‘of bitterness at Laval’s attempt to draft it to work in German war factories. He has arrested former Premier Herriot, a friend of the united nations, which is an indication of the drastic methods Laval is forced to use to suppress the opposition to his regime. It may well be that the time - has come when a repudiation of the Laval government by us would be greeted by the gagged French : people as an act of friendship toward them. In any case the Laval government is working for Germany and it is therefore an enemy of the united nations. Laval is nothing now but a labor recruiting agent whose job is to shanghai French workmen for German war factories. He is trying to help Germany

v win the ; war. . He thinks Germany will win, He: x wants Germany

Win. So he doesn't belong on our side and he ought not have the use of whatever prestige American recognition means to him.

" The New Order Is Cracking Up

‘SINCE ONLY the state department knows all the facts, we have to accept its -judgment. If we need to keep relations with Vichy we need to keep them and we can't break relations. But we can frankly tecognize that it is only a matter of necessity and that we know Laval for what he is. < There are many signs that Hitler's new order is king up and that this is the time for us to eut os oi a ai wh

My Day,

(NGTON, Montiay Yesterday astm, Ts

of the chairman of the Democratic national commita few days he er |

Pity the Poor Day Worker

USUALLY: IT'S THE night - worker who has a complaint about ‘having his slumber disturbed. In the .case of Vincent Moran, 1607 Marlow ave, the tables ‘are turned. Mr, Moran works on the 4 p. m. to midnight shift at Allison's, gets a ride to: within a block and a half of his home. As he approaches the house about 1 a. m., he usually whistles so his wife will unlock the door. Now he has received an

anonymous letter addressed to’ “Mr, Tenant” at his address and warning him .to cut out his whistling as

he “awakes the neighbors from ‘their sleep.” Mr.

Moran says if “they’ll” quit waking him at 7 a. m, he'll quit whistling at 1 a. m. Sounds like a fair bargain, , . . Ora Parks, the wily press agent for Cole Bros. circus, likes to kid his newspaper friends. He has a. habit of sending them magnificently ‘engraved invitations to attend dinners and circus performances—in some other city, The most recent is a fancy invitation to attend.Cole Bros.’ “sixth annual dinner and witness the first night's performance of the 1942 LOS ANGELES engagement.” No railroad tickets accompanied the invitations.

Tough on Congressmen, Too

EVERYONE KNOWS that departmental activities in ‘Washington are pretty complicated, with all the

‘New. Deal agencies piled on the old ones, and the

war agencies on top of them all. But now it’s gotten so bad, reports Dan Kidney, our Washington: correspondent, that it’s becoming common practice for congressmen to call reporters and ask if they know anyone in such and 3 an alphabetical outfit, If the reporter does: have: sueh+a“contact, the congressman asks an introduction.’ The solution, suggests Dan, is for congressmen to hire lobbyists. P. S.: Dan is due back here soon for the windup of the political campaign, . . , Harry Reid Jr., the Highland golf club champion, thinks he’s just about set to continue golfing after gasoline rationing starts. He is telling friends he has discovered that his father's WestfieldIllinois bus runs to within 150 feet of the clubhouse. The only hitch is that it is on the wrong side. of the canal.’ So: Harry. is looking for a rowboat.

By Rasmiond Clapper

The Norwegians are certainly never going to accept the new order. Affer two and a half years Germany has to go in there with mass executions, and sesrches of houses, to try to break up. the resistance. The Germans are now going. to try to conscript Belgian labor. They are having trouble putting the squeeze on ‘Denmark. :It becomes more clear every day that Hitler can get his new order only by holding it under bayonets. = Laval, who is giving French industrialists and labor committees instructions about sending workmen to Hitler's German - factories, and is’ ‘telling them to hurry up about it, is serving as a legman for a new order that is tottering before it is fairly. born. His own government is honeycombed with Frenchmen who must be revolting inwardly at what they are compelled to do. :

Just Excuse It, Please

' AND WHEN ANY French territory is taken back after second-front operations, is it going to be handed over to Laval, the recruiting agent of ‘Hitler? Of course not.

It will be given niin to the French people, riot 3

to Hitler's puppet. Our intentions in that respect would - be made more convincing if we ended our relations with Laval now. But I know I am confusing diplomatic recogaition with moral approval. When we government, it does not mean we approve ‘of it, “That's international law, you know. Just the same we didn’t recognize Soviet Russia for a long time for the reason that we didn’t like the Moscow regime. It wasn't international ‘law, but that's the way we felt about it. : That's the way a lot of people feel about Vichy. But this is. no way to be carrying on about a so-called government with which we are maintaining what are

technically known as friendly relations, so excuse it Please. & i

ve a soll len for Mrs. SRwerd J, Pian the vite.

By Ernie Pyle

Clean Dugout, Pine Boughs And Courtesy

Here is the first of a series of exclusive dispatches'based on nine ‘days which Leland Stowe has just spent with the red army on the Rzhev front, traveling back and forth along the front and living with Russian advanced units in various sectors. Mr. Stowe has spent a much longer time with the red army than any other foreign newsman since the war began. :

I=Up to the Front

By LELAND STOWE

C , 1943, by The Indianapolis Times Op e Chicago Daily News, Inc.

"WITH THE RED ARMY

ON THE RZHEV.FRONT.

—At last I have seen and lived . with the Red army. I have seen the front in several sectors and have the feel of these Russian soldiers and officers who have amazed the world. I really know in personal terms .how the Russian people at the front, along the front and in recaptured villages inside the combat areas, are fighting this war. In the past nine days, Russia's

troops and Russia's battle have become a vivid reality. We rode

‘ long and hard and bounced high * and -interminably to get to this

Rzhev front. Those who rode and ‘bounced with me are Ilya Ehrenburg, who is the Soviet Union’s most famous war correspondent; Maj. Arapov, dean of all front-line correspondents, of the Russian army’s daily newspaper, Red Star, and finally, Capt. Emma. "There will be more later about all three, especially about Capt. Emma. - In spite of our hard luck chauffeur, Ivan the Terrible, and despite. the seemingly . endless stretches of rutted, . chewed-up wilderness and swampland trails which pass for .roads, we have crawled nearly 500 miles inside the front lines in these nine days. We have visited the headquarters of six different Red .army front units and I have Spent. the night in three of them. :.- ¥ Twice, Russian peasants gave us. shelter and, out of their magnificent hospitality, even their humble beds for the night. Once we took refuge, long ‘after midnight, in a front zone base hospital. Two other nights were sleepless, fighting the mud ruts and ditches of lateral rods paralleling the front. And one ‘night I really slept six hours—in a snug tent, in a pine forest, close beside the clear, rushing waters of the Volga, Big guns rumbled and boomed that night, as on other nights, but the music of the Volga and the odor -of the tent’s carpet of pine boughs worked their magic.

‘A Two-Legged Passport’

FOR SEVEN DAYS in front sectors I never saw a single male dressed in civilian clothes. Here such villages as the Germans have not completely burned to the ground are inhabited only by women and children. Their men are all in the army-—except for the many hundreds in these districts. who were shot or hanged by the Nazis. In all of these zones ‘along. the Rzhev front, neither officers nor men had ever seen an American, except a few of those attached to Lieut. Gen. Dmitri Leliushenko’s headquarters where the Wendell L. Willkie par--ty paid its ‘visit. These nine ‘days have been an unprecedented privilege for me as an American’ correspondent. When I say this, I must hasten to add that this has been so because Ilya Ehrenburg is unquestionably one of the most potent, twolegged passports to the Red army that can be found anywhere in the Soviet Union. I scribble these paragraphs in my notebook as we face toward Moscow again. But ‘there the

Church Nurseries Here Care for the Children While Their Mothers Are Attending Services Without Worry

By ROSEMARY REDDING doriae ty of church services

thunder of Howitzers and mortars or the thud of bombs seldom ceases for more than an hour or two, by either day or night. Here within the rumble of artillery there is also the peculiar calm of men who know how to command and know how to fight. Here, only a few miles across the plain, we see great fires burning in the city of Rzhev, night after night, and the machine guns’ crackle intermittently punc-

. tuates the crisp midnight air.

Cannon fire, exploding mortars and rockets trace a flickering pattern along the front nightly for

‘many miles. And the fiery orange

mushroom of Rzhev, itself, is al-. ways the center of this front line which nightly is written in flame. This is, the front.

» H »

‘What Is Called a Road’

BUT TO GET UP to the front is no simple matter. The other afternoon, Capt. Emma, another young regimental commissar and

“For seven days I never saw a single male dressed in civilian clothes

I went up to the headquarters of ¢ 3 a

an advanced unit: There were no jeeps available so we had to depend on Ivan the Terrible and his ‘equally unpredictable car. And we had literally to ride across the battlefield of last winter, spring and summer—what was the front before the Russians’ Rzhev offensive crashed forward in August. A modern battlefield, strewn with . debris, pockmarked with shellholes . and trenches and located in low, boggy marshes, is a pretty tough proposition for an ordinary five-seater touring car, especially when the car has been battling this kind of terrain for more than a year. As we start, our trail winds through a great wilderness of bushes ‘and stumps. The stumps are all about three feet high be~ cause the Germans cut trees in the deep snow, leveling a wide

wooded area last winter in their

desperate need for fuel. All now is dreary wasteland, ugly and jagged with the imprint of the war. But off here to the left the Russians have built what is called a road. In’ this immediate sector it is the main forward communication line. Hundreds of tanks and trucks have mashed and churned the earth hére. There are ditches, holes and great ridges of caked mud everywhere. The main: tracks

‘are rutted so deeply the car’s axle

frequently cannot clear the hummocks left in the center, sa Ivan has to dig and explore constantly: Fortunately there has been no rain for days. Otherwise, it would be impossible for anything but trucks, tractors, or jeeps, to tra- ' verse even the first half-mile. Much of this road is corduroy— packed solidly with pine logs—but the corduroy soon fades into morasses of ditches and caked mud again. We progress half the time in jerks of 50 or 100 yards. As we edge forward the vast, warped earth expands flatly on either side and straight ahead with scarcely a shoulder of rising ground to, Rzhev and the front line which

- cuts through it.

® H

There Used to Be Villages

The big guns talk ahead of us, then off to the north or again to the south. We are now within about five miles of the front lines, but our destination is three miles closer than that. The sun bathes this whole desolate prairie. Nowhere in any direction can a Russian village be seen, although there used to be more than a dozen scattered over these ap-

“Here within the rumble of artillery this is also the peculiar calm of men who know how to |

proaches to Rzhev. Here and - there a rare clump of trees confirms the fact that peasants’ log cabins once huddled near their shade. On either side, dug into these badlands of war, are trenches from which the Germans were ex--pelled a few weeks age. We see hundreds of small horseshoeshaped machine gun nests made of clods of turf. They offer no protection; merely concealment. Repeatedly we pass tangled rows of rusted barbed wire, now and then a tilted, blackened tank and once the burned-ouf, wreckage of a Nazi Messerschmitt. : But: up.;in' the: serene autumn sky also sounds ‘a Steady humming like that of a gigantic bumblebee. Planes are coming over again; they come from German directions. The sound is high and slightly off to.the left and south, but still we cannot .see them. Then a sefies of icrunches roar louder and closer than the now mount,ing artillery fire. Across the prairie, perhaps a mile and a half away, great columns: of smoke spurt heavenward in the sunshine. They were German planes, all right. The commissar says they are trying for Russian communications lines or some Soviet artillery batteries. 2 8 =»

We Pass the Trucks

IVAN THE TERRIBLE, with his prize fighter’s mug in a constant scowl and his powerful hands tight on the wheel, keeps our car rocking and careening forward, bombs or no bombs. The Nazi bumblebees are still buzzing overhead and on this impossible road a line of half a dozen trucks is bucking slowly toward us. It is a big gamble whether we can pass them without getting 'stuck and those trucks are a perfect target. Ivan growls and his forehead narrows down practically to the vanishing point. He tugs and twists at the wheel. The car leaps and bounds. I am having a very animated argument with my imaginatipn all this time. I don't’ win =the! argument, ‘but Ivan plunges the car through a lake of mud two feet deep, hurdles it over a caked clay promontory and across several pine iogs. Then he swerves the car up an incline and back into the main ruts again. We are in- the clear, with the’ last truck behind : us.

times, v Insist on staying in ie Ts.

ery. In the beginning primary, they’

r-(are taught Bible stories. At the

| age of six, they go into the second where

Just then a series of roars burst loose again—this time ahead of us and slightly to the right. Columns of rolling smoke look no more than .a mile away. As we see them spout up, one alongside the other, Russian ack-ack crackles’ madly. ‘We see them at, it, not far from us. Capt. Emma is chatting all the while. She does not seem to pay any attention and, remarking that, my opinion of Stowe takes a sharp drop. Transport soldiers are doing odd jobs near the road and ‘they, too, take no notice. Capt. Emma and ~they have been living in this at-

~ mosphere for a long time, Another | crump of bombs—these are off to

the south again, " » »

Like Kansas or Nebraska

Both Russian big guns and German planes indicate that there is pretty sharp -action in this sector today. Yet JAhis prairie, with. its rare clusters of trees and unbroken, even features, stretches in all directions like some - corner of Kansas ‘or’ Nebraska. "It seems incredible that: armies can be dug in and hold in this featureless terrain. which levels off to the horizon. Yet the detonations of guns rock the air with increased anger and pillars of black smoke hover over the battle lines and over Rhzev itself. Here, too, on all ‘sides are bombholes: or shellholes in the ravaged, massacred earth. The commissar waves Ivan. off into a sidepath and the car bucks and. churns along toward another little row of trees. Between ‘the trees: are nothing but : crumpled bricks and refuse in ‘big holes in the earth—all that remains to mark peasants’ houses. Eventually, we come: to a single old cabin with a cracked roof. It has great embankments, eight feet deep, heaped against its sides and held with logs. “This used to be my house,” says Capt. Emma. She is just coming back from leave in Moscow and her outfit has moved ahead since then. ; Here, abandoned dugouls show their rude mounds in all directions. A Russian lieutenant on horseback gallops up. to guide us to the new headquarters. Ivan has tp drive across soggy, torn marshland ‘and brush and the: Heutenant scouts the route for us, galloping forward, sideways, then back again. It has become such

old, are cared for each Sunday.

ight.”

a gamble whether we n get through that I don’t e en hear the planes any more. . The lieutenant’s horse if in high spirits and so.is Capt. yma. “We

. are going to my unit,” {she had

said, with a great deal | of pride in her enunciation of “mjy.” That also means that perhapsl she will see her 17-year-old sory, who is also fighting here. So the car churns . on through he wet, scarred earth and arognd alder bushes o and shellholes| and ‘on through the badlands, ujitil finally our guide reins in his lporse, ‘u iY LE a

‘Beneath Tiny Pi ples’

Everything here is svjampy wil‘derness and at first . see noth-

. ing that might conc@al human

habitations. Yet men live “here and in one direction! the front lines ‘ lie only two’ rniles away. There are scrub pines| and curioy ‘most of them, jt now ap- , grow on and ayound small atin or little rolls in the ‘marshland’s surface. | It is beneath these tiny pimples on the badlands’ face that thi Red army men live—those who gre not now fighting in the front] lines just ahead. A short. walk around the bushes antl past haphazard collections. of very young. pines ayd then we come to a line of pine boughs. They. cover both sides of a trench and the bottom of the treneh is lined with boards es protection against ‘the mud. Nt is ‘a very clean, strongly bols ered trench and gradually it bujrows deeper into the. earth. on it. heads straight into a p he - planted mound. Capt. Emma, the cammissar and I descend a few ste turn to the left and enter the | door. The colonel is waiting fory us. We are in the headquarters | of a frontline unit—and Capt, Emma has found her new home! at the front. It is difficult to tell | whether she is most pleased to' back. again or whether the calomel is ‘even more pleased ‘to hav All in all, a rough

matical, but you Suess it. The a

ne at home.” colonel who insistg my coat for me: dugout. . . . But we directly. A

BEN HUR TO INITIATE | Arrius, court 5, Ben {Hur Life as-

sociation, will have its jfirst fall ini-

ght in Castle be in charge

tiation at 8 p, m. hall. Ethel Emmons. s of entertainment.