Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 16 November 1942 — Page 9

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” Hoosier Vagabond

IN ENGLAND, Nov. 16.—At a bomber station I Noticed a young lieutenant wearing a wide silver bracelet, to which his wrist-watch was attached. It was undeniably a Navajo Indian product, so I asked him if he had gone to the bombardier school at s Albuquerque. He had. I asked him how come the bracelet, and he said well that was a funny thing, and told this story. There was an Indian who hung around the airport at Albuquerque, and one day last spring when the boys came down ‘from a trip he got to talking to my friend. ~ “When you're up there in the air, you can see things on the ground?” he asked. “Sure, we can see things,” my friend said. “See big things like Albuquerque and the Rio Gros he asked. “Easily,” said my friend. “Can you see little things like houses and fields?” the Indian asked. © “Yes, we can see all those things.”

Sure Enough, They Came Through

“HOW ABOUT little things like automobiles?” “Yes, we can even see those and lots of other things.” “Well, can you see real little things like COWS and dogs and goats?” My friend told: him they could,-and asked why he ! was so curious. ‘Finally, it came out that the Indian “had lost his goats. So he wondered, provided the “aviators could actually see little things on the ground, if they'd keep an eye out for his flock. “Sure,” said my friend. “We're going Up again right now, and we'll look for them.” And sure enough they spotted a herd of goats way back up in a!mountain ravine, impossible to see from

Inside Indianapolis By Lowel: Nussbaum

MAYOR SULLIVAN (remember him?) has been secretly counting the -days (46) until next January. That's when he. retires from office and turns all his municipal cares over %o broad-shouldered Gen. Tyndall. After being mayor so many years, he probably won't know what to do with himself for a while. He may even forget and show up at the office in the city hall some noon, as Harry Leslie is reported to have done, absentmindedly, a few weeks after retiring as governor. Mayor Sullivan, with nine years—five years in his first term and four in the second—has been mayor of Indianapolis: longer than any other man, with one single exception. That exception is John Caven, who held the office from 1863 to 1867—fouir years—and from 1875 to 1881—six more. That made 10 years for him—one more than Mayor Sullivan. The retiring mayor, however, can take pride in the fact that the Sullivan family has. * held the office longer than any other family, since his father, Thomas L. Sullivan, was mayor almost four years—1890 to Oct. 12, 1893. That gives the Sullivans 13 years—and the championship.

Back to the Sidewalks

NOW AT THE election is becoming * just a memory, most of the candidates have quit going down alleys- and gone back to the sidewalks. The only exceptions are the successful Republican candidates who control desirable jobs. During the campaign, a candidate cos figure on more than two blocks to the hour, on the:sidewalks, what with everybody buttonholing him to tell him what a cinch he was to be elected. The liars! ,.. The current salutation, among Democratic jobholders at the court house, is: “Found anything yet?”. The usual reply: “Not yet; still looking, though. Ive got a few irons in the fire.” . .. The phone rang in the mayor’s office Friday. Russell Campbell, the’ ‘mayor’s secretary, answered. “I want

Washington

WASHINGTON, Nov. 16.—A congressional investigation of the Solomon islands campaign is advocated by Republican house leader Martin and some others. Nothing could be more unfortunate than to have a full-scale congressional investigation of the Solomons 47 fighting in the midst of action. We are engaged in a critical cam- ~ paign in the Solomons—and now we have added the North African campaign. Undoubtedly Admiral Ernest J. King, commander of the fleet, and other high naval officers will be willing to give a small group in either house, or the naval committees, a picture of what has happened. But to attempt a fuylldress investigation extending over a period of days would be a dis-

* astrous thing. | 4 First, we are in the midst of the fighting in both the Pacific and the Atlantic. The Mediterranean action raises many new problems because ships and supplies must ‘be diverted to sustain that campaign. It will take the full ingenuity of our command to wage both campaigns at once. Their full time is necessary. They should not be asked to spend hours day after day in committee rooms at the capitol when they ought to be at their desks to give instant decisions on the messages that are coming in at all hours. They are in the midst of operations and should give their whole time to it.

They're Human Beings!

SECOND, ANY KIND of full-scale inquiry now

By Ernie Pyle

the lower mesa, and very difficult to get to. They|

came back and told the Indian. Next day he said he'd found the goats, and how much did he owe my flying friend? Nothing, naturally. But the Indian was so grateful he had this silver bracelet especially made, and gave it to him as a surprise, , My friend knows the Indian only as “The Chief.” My friend’s name is Lieut. Harry Boothe, a bombardier from North Carolina. His bracelet is quite a novelty in England.

The New Mexico Clan

WE MIGHT as well get all the New Mexico news off the same day. The state being as thinly populated as it is, it’s unusual to run onto a New Mexican over here. But in one day of moving around from one bomber station to another, I bumped into four of them, One was Pete Hurd, the famous artist from Roswell. He is over here doing a whole series of air force paintings for ‘Life. He: has lived with the same bomber group for three months. I think he is the most popular man on the station. Another is Lieut. Col. Sam Agee Jr. whose father is a big name in Silver City. Sam has been in ‘the air forces quite a while, and is very young to be so high. A third is Lieut, Herbert Desgeorges from Gallup. He used to be with the Indian service. Now he is in charge of getting all ‘the supplies to keep the bombers in the air at this one station. He looks like a real bronzed Southwesterner. He isn't a flier, but likes being with the air forces anyway. The fourth is Lieut. Bob Wollard, a bombardier from Clovis. He is a politician at heart, and bombing is just an interlude in his career of eventually becoming governor of New Mexico. He is a blond, affable fellow who simply lives politics, and it seems incongruous to think of him up there personally pressing the button that sends tons of bombs down onto German cities,

to speak to Gen. Tyndall,” said a woman's voice. Mr. Campbell patiently explained that Gen. Tyndal] was not there—wouldn't take office until the first of the year. “Well, where is he?” she demanded. “I haven't the remotest idea; why not try Republican headquarters?” said the secretary. “I did, and they said the same thing,” retorted the woman, banging the receiver,

Alabama Antics

AN EXCITED CHICKEN, or maybe a duck or even a goose, dashing wildly through auto traffic with a crowd of white-aproned clerks in hot chase, is a familiar sight on Alabama st, in the vicinity of city market. Last Friday, it was a chicken. The pesky critter got away from one of the poultry houses in the vicinity, went dashing hither and thither. The pursuit was started by an employee of the poultry house. Soon, half a dozen amused spectators had joined in. Running between a string of cars, the chicken disappeared from sight and the chase was abandoned. A few minutes later the chicken stepped out from beneath a parked car and walked deliberately across the street and back into the very poultry house from which it had fled.

Around the Town

MOTORISTS WERE lined up in the Gaseteria station at 34th and Central the. other morning, some wanting gas, others messing with anti-freeze. Just then a couple sailed serenely by in an electric brougham. Everybody stared jealously. “That's the life for me,” commented one of the lined up motorists. “No gas rationing, no anti-freeze,” everybody agreed. The license on the electric—a 1919 Milburn— was issued to Mrs. A. L. Hammond, 3258 Fall Creek blvd. . . . Wallace O. Lee still is fighting a persistent cold. It’s affected his bronchial tubes. Maybe he’s Just laying the groundwork for another vacation in Arizona. . . . Payl L. McCord is taking a brief leave of absence from his gas rationing board duties to take a “rest” at the national real estate conference cpening tomorrow in St. Louis.

By Raymond Clapper

Perhaps this could be kept behind closed doors, but it is taking a long chance in a full-scale inquiry that might continue for many days. Third, our high command consists of human beings. They cannot give full attention to current operations if they must be worrying at the same time about a premature post-mortem. Did you ever sit down to write a column and have the boss raise hell with you in the middle of it and then try to get going again? It is true in any kind of work. Admiral King’s reputation as a naval officer is at stake in the campaigns now going on. If he must stop in the middle of them and defend himself, try to make a record that will protect his career and reputation, he isn’t going to be able to keep his mind on the work we hired him for, which was to win the naval end of the wer.

Remember “Old Ironpants”?

ADMIRAL KING is known as a tough guy. He probably is, on his ship, and in running his show. But as a human being he is, like many another tough guy, easily worried by criticism. Leon Henderson is Washington’s classic dead-end kid. He can knock around at a party having a whole night's fun, while knowing that the next day the cotton-state senators are going to jump down his throat. It doesn’t bother him. There are two kinds of people—those who are hard outside and soft inside, and those who are soft outside and hard inside. You get fooled sometimes. Often the ones you think are tough take it the hardest. Hugh Johnson, known .o0 the world in Pegler’s immortal tag as “Old Ironpants,” was as sensitive as a child under criticism.

Genius Finds Its Full Scope In War Jobs

American industry and labor are full out in the country’s mighty war effort. Tanks, planes, guns, ships enter the vast stream of the implements of conflict. But back of this production flow is the stirring story of American engineers, production chiefs and scientific geniuses. Charles T. Lucey was assigned to get this story, and following is ‘the first of his reports on the men behind the men who man the assembly lines.

By CHARLES T. LUCEY Times Special Writer

THE GENIUS of an

“America that produced

Edison and Ford and’ Kettering is being turned now, each day more expertly and swiftly and mightily, to a mass production sweep of plowshares-into-swords unmatched in all the history

of warfare. The proof is widespread. You find it in Detroit where Ford, General Motors and Chrysler and others are pouring into munitions-making all the industrial know-how and savvy gained in the 40 years since auto-making emerged from a little world of ingenious handymen and - tinkers in back street machine shops. You find it in Pittsburgh ‘and Cleveland :and Bethlehem, where steel men are rolling out for ships and guns and tanks the finest alloys the metallurgists and mills have ever produced. You find it in the wizardry of General Electric. at Schenectady and in the incredible magic of duPont’s chemistry at Wilmington. It’s the story of the backlog of invention, engineering and production experience industry was ready to offer when a desperate Uncle Sam looked up from Pearl Harbor and asked it to pass the ammunition—and quickly, fd » 2

Resources There

ON THAT Dec. 7, as on all days since, the United States drew on the sort of adventure and boldness and courage that industry showed in the past in putting up $300,000,000 a year for research and experiment. It drew on the finest laboratory knowledge of men whose tools were atoms and molecules and on the skill of craftsmen in force and foundry who had spent their lives finding finer ways to fuse and mold, cast and weld... American industry, since making the greatest and most successful changeover in history, has thrown old munitions production timetables and materials requirements schedules out the window. Through mass production, it is turning out two or three or a half dozen guns or tanks where older methods made just one. By smart machining, it is stretching scarce materials to .make them produce more weapons. By eliminating countless operations it is releasing badly needed machine capacity for other work. And it is saving millions of man-hours of labor. It is heroic stuff and breathtaking. Thousands of .peacetime tools redesigned for wartime jobs. Hundreds of thousands of workers, spray-painting or tacking uphostery a year ago, working on ‘machines on which tolerances are measured in thousandths of an

inch. 2 2

f J AND DOES all this mean there is virtual perfection in industry’s

This powerful antiaircraft gun built by General Motors Fisher Body division can knock down - bombers seven miles high.

production for war? That output is at capacity? No worries? By no means. Sit down with Henry Ford in his office in the Ford experimental laboratories in Dearborn and he tells you we're still months output. Talk to Charles E. Wilson, - president of General Motors, and you get ready acknowledgment of factors holding back production. But. bite into this war production job almost any place where the topside of industrial America has taken hold of it and you find untold stories of how U. S. soldiers and sailors are fighting today, not empty-handed, but with tanks and guns and shells, because someone found a shortcut to Berlin on drafting board or conveyor line. There's the way GM is making the Oerlikon antiaircraft gun in its Pontiac plant. The Oerlikon is a ‘Swiss gun, considered one of the real finds of the ‘war, and plans for it were flown to England at the time of the fall of France. It's used on combat and merchant

‘ships and the dive bombers have

no heart for the way it throws

out 20-millimeter shells at about |

400 a minute. Much of the work of old world

gunsmiths and even of this coun-

try’s arsenals, working in yesterday’s small quantities, was almost as individualistic as watchmaking. Speed in production is related directly to the way in which a manufacturer tools up his plant—if he has large orders he can afford to invest in elaborate machine tools which provide rapid output.

” ” ”

Never Done Before

PONTIAC ENGINEERS and production men, turned loose on the Oelikon, did things that never had been done before, and the original production time per gun

has been cut by almost two-thirds.

The fine, careful’ work on the many parts making up the breech

case, for example, used to take:

away from top’

190 hours; today, it takes just under 65. Time required for barrel rifling has been reduced by 73 per cent, and for making mis--.cellaneous small parts i 61 per

. cent.

How did the engineers do this

* job of giving the crew of an Amer-

ican. ship three death-spitting deck guns instead of only one? There was the gunbarrel spring casing, covering the recoil mechanism, that takes up the terrific backlash of firing. In other days, work on’ this operation began on a 56-pound solid alloy-steel forging and, when it was at last machined down to the piece wanted, it weighed just six pounds. That meant. 50 pounds of expensive steel scrap from each gun—steel that must be sent back to the mills for remelting. Good auto designing practice suggested ‘that this spring casing could be made of a forged base to which a short tubular extension would be welded. This was done and today, instead of starting with a . 36-pound - steel forging, they start with one weighing 14 pounds —a,- saving per gun of 42 pounds of hard-to-get alloy steel. 2 = =

Triple Saving

THAT SAVES money which goes to the government in the scaling-down of contract prices. It releasesgbadly needed machine tools for other work. It saves man-hours of labor. Pontiac engineers found: a dozen shortcuts like that. Chambering a gun barrel was an operation that took an hour and a quarter, but the auto people ‘introduced a giant vertical chambering machine which did 13 barrels at once and cut the time per barrel to four minutes. So, too, with rifling the grooves inside the barrel, which used to require 105 minutes but now takes 12 minutes. Then there was the trigger cover plate. Ordnance practice

was. to. make. this from a solid steel forging, weighing almost five and a half pounds. The blueprints demanded that it be carefully machined all over, whittled down bit by bit with fine steel cutting tools. It meant 29 operations on a dozen machines, But the engineers decided it could be stamped out of a piece of steel with a giant hammer, and a small part, formerly ‘forged, attached to it by welding. It reduced the operations from 29 to 15 and saved two pounds of steel as well as hours of machining and 90 per cent of the cost.

” » ”

Both Simplified

THE OERLIKON’S hammer axis bolt, the piece that hits the shell, had a slotted head of elaborate shape. When Pontiac engineers took over the blueprints and asked why nobody could tell them. They designed ‘a simple, coneshaped bolt, eliminating two machine operations, cutting the cost to about one-twelfth of the original. } Pontiac designers kept on with their magic. They provided an elevating pedestal, worked with a foot pedal much the same as a barber chair, to save thousands of dollars as against the former mechanism. They made a new shoulder rest and hand grip at a sizable -money saving and in the new design provided for sighting the gun with the left eye as well as the right, which the earlier part overlooked. The whole performance justifies what the British representatives predicted when they went out to Pontiac first to get GM to take on the contract. They saw autos rolling off the production lines one a minute. “If you can do this,” they exclaimed, “you can do anything.” And Pontiac, going into production in seven and a half months as against nine for the British

. "Milling the air- + cooled slots of "the Oerlikon _ gun barrel in - the Pontiac © Motor division i defense plant.

and 18 months for the Swiss, has come pretty close to it. Who did “it? It wasn’t any one man. Partly the blue-eyed, know-

_ ing, slightly cynical Pontiac en-

gineer, B. H. Anibal; partly Carl Ahlers, the production line boss. And the men back of them, of course. ® 8 8

Broad Approach

BUT MORE hasically it is the automotive industry’s broad approach to any problem that demands mass production know-: how—the story of Ford, the Dodge brothers, the Fisher brothers, Knudsen, Walter Chrysler, K. T. Keller, the - Studebaker family, Nash and three dozen others you can name, In the broad sense it has taken 40 years to lay on the line, for the United States government today what is being provided by the Pontiac plant in turning out Oerlikon guns. It isn’t just Pontiac. Not far from Pontiac is a Fisher plant, where 90-millimeter antiaircraft guns—the largest ever put on a moving assembly line—are being produced in. about one-fifth the time formerly needed. The men making it never saw an antiaircraft gun before, yet today they build a weapon in which almost unbelievable accuracy of parts and tolerances is demanded. They're cutting costs, saving man hours, turning needed machine tools to other tasks, paring the use of scarce metals—cast steel for bronze in huge bearings, for example, Production worries all gone? Of course not. But walk along the miles and miles of lines of fabricating and assembly and come out at the polished weapons ready to go into the hands of America’s fighting men, and you see plenty of evidence out here that industry is meeting a challenge.

LABOR LEADERS

T0 MEET HERE

Frances Perkins to Direct

Study of Work Problems In Wartime.

Wartime problems under state

labor standards will be discussed at the ninth national conference on labor legislation which meets at the

Cranberry Crop

BOSTON, Nov. 16 (U, P.) There’ll be plenty of cranberries for Thanksgiving tables this year. Harvest estimates, according to the New England crop reporting service, point to a record Massachuseétts yield and a national harvest which ranks second to the peak 1937 crop. Massachusetts farmers were expected to harvest 525,000 barrels, an increase of 113,000 barrels over the 10-year average. The U. S.

Found Sufficient:

cranberry estimate is 785,000 barrels as compared with the 10-year average of 603,680.

O. E. 8. GROUP TO MEET

Brightwood chapter 399, O. E. S., will have a stated meeting followed by initiation services at 8 p. m. Monday in Veritas Masonic Temple. Mrs, Helen Reddick is worthy matron and Herbert Reddick is worthy patron,

FUNNY BUSINESS

WIVES TO GET STORE TRAINING

Classes Reopen Next Week With 70 Establishments Co-operating.

Classes to train housewives for employment in ‘local retail stores will be reopened next Monday by the Indianapolis Merchants associ-

‘ation in co-operation with the

HEBREWS WILL SING AT FRIDAY SERVICE

A Sabbath Service of Song will be held at the Indianapolis Hebrew Congregational temple, 10th and Delaware sts, at 8 p. m. Friday. The Temple quartet, under the direction of Farrell Scott, tenor, will be assisted by the Butler-Jordan Philharmonic choir. The choir is led by Prof.-Joseph Lautner. :

ELECT WARING TO U. S. O.

Roane Waring, national commander of the American Legion, has

There is a lot of that in everybody and I suppose there may be in Admiral King. Anyway, & congressional investigation isn’t going to win the Solomons campaign but it might easily interfere with Winding it.

Claypool hotel tomorrow and Wednesday witk Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins presiding. * State law administrators and

representatives of organized labor are delegates appointed by governors ‘of 40 states, Alaska, and the District of Columbia. Topics to be discussed in the conference called by Secretary Perkins include adjustment of state labor standards to war needs; industrial health, safety and working conditions; problems involved in expanding the labor supply to include large numbers of younger workers, women, older workers, minority groups, and handicapped workers; hours of work, and minimum Wage Frocedure in wartime, : 5 A

distributive education program of the public schools. Trainees will attend class two hours a day for five days. Classes will be scheduled at intervals from 8 a. m. to 7 p. m. at the Lincoln hotel and Crispus Attucks high school. Teachers will be selling instructors from downtown stores. Approximately 400 . housewives ‘|already have been trained and Jd [more than 70 retail stores are | co-operating in the program. Owen A. Johnson, public schools co-ordinator for the distributive education program, said, “With the| general public being urged to shop earlier than usual this year because of wartime distributive problems, it | will be necessary that stores in-

been elected to the hoard of directors of the U. S. O,, replacing last year’s national commander.

would have to be secret. Questions to be answered would concern \rrent operations and would involve discussing military information of the most secret nature and of he utmost current interest to Japan.

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HOLD - EVERYTHING

By Eleanor Roosevelt

. LONDON, \ England, Sunday.—To continue about my Edinburgh visit! We drove up to the castle, where an old friend, Lieut. Gen. Sir Andrew Thorne, received us and Mr. J. n Patterson, showed us points of Diterest. 1 fell: in love with little ‘St. Margaret's chapel, * ‘which all the Margarets of Scot“land provide with flowers week by ‘Weel

fo its purposes. Finally, we dined with Lord and Lady Roseberry. \ I left on the evening train for London and arrived exactly on time. I felt almost as much at home coming back to Ambassador Winant’s flat, as I would feel in New York City in our own little apartment. We spent the morn- . ing tidying up and. taking care of mail.

Wi e stopped at St. Giles cathedral, where the dean‘took us about. Then we went to tea with the lord provost and his wife and met about 200 of the leading citizens of Edinburgh. : At about 6 o'clock, we reached the American Red Cross club and spent an hour. Here I saw two ; friends I had almost given up the © hope of meeting, Lieut. McIlwraith asd Third. Officer Doris Goodwin of the WRENS, I went

building, which is very adapted ot

At noon, an old friend of my school: days came to] see me, and then my aunt, Mrs. David Gray, and her husband had luncheon with us. It is wonderful to have them in London with us and this part of my stay has been taking on a much more leisurely complexion, since the really planned schedules are nearly all accomplished. Friday afternoon, I went to report on all I have seen to Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth, and had the pleasure of having tea with the whole royal family. His Majesty, the king, had just returned from seeing,

bia

not ely. his own aviation groups, but also some o

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“At. the opening. session

. CLUB TO HEAR ROSS Dr. M. O. Ross, acting president

of Butler university, will address the Co-operative club at a luncheon meeting Wednesday at the Columsubject will be

club. The

session delega ates will report on their state’s progress in labor legislation and programs planned for 1943 state legislatures.

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crease their staff’ of sales persons and other employees in order to accommodate the increased flow of

customers.

“The merchants are desirous of avoiding disappointment on the part of . customers and those who assist

4 !in this work will be ‘rendering a helpful service.” : | ‘Women wisHing to enroll in the| i

classes may call Mr. Johnson's of-

i fice, Li, 2381. An enrollment fee of|

'$1 wil be charged.