Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 20 November 1942 — Page 24

‘going to

Hoosier Vagabond

LONDON, No’. 20.—Recently at one of our American stations in I'ngland I got acquainted with an officer of the royal navy. He was ther¢ on a sort of semi-detached duty, in order to take l ospital ‘treatment for an old injury. The officer was Lieut. Oliver Watson. slender and handsome man, who speaks slowly and softly. He is of “the gentleman’s navy,” and he is a gentleman. . Comm. Watson was on a, British warship that was torpedoed several months ago. The loss of | the ship has been announced in an | admiralty communique, but the | story of what followed the sinking | comes only from a few men like Comm. Watson who are left to

_ tell it. They were in the South Atlantic. It was just

after lunch 0: a warm and lovely day. Comm. Watson and some of the other officers were in the wardroom reading It was the kind of day that is too calm and bright and beautiful to dream ‘that anything would be happening. Suddenly the ship trembled from end to end— “like a rat being shaken by a dog,” as Watson says. They all kne v instinctively what had happened, and they made = dash for the deck. As they rushed out the wardroo; 1 door most of the officers turned to the right along the companionway. It flashed through Watson’s mid that he was about to be on the wrong

end of the ¢ ieue, as the British say, so he turned left.

The Act That Saved Him *~ THAT A MOST subconscious act saved his life, for within five second another torpedo struck. None of those who kid turned right survived.

Insi de Indianapolis By Lowell Nussbaum

SOME VEEKS AGO Inside remarked that it

- would be 2 nice idea if someone would up and give

the local Rd Cross chapter a home of its own—maybe one of the older residences in the downtown area. Well, it loc is as if that new home might materialize, Members of the Red Cross board are considering an offer by G. Barrett Moxley, president of the Kiefer-Stewart Co., to give the chapter his 83-year-old home at 1126 N. Meridian. It’s been maintained in apple-pie order. Mr. Moxley sometimes refers to it as “the second house north of Washington on Meridian.” . .. The state police department’s cat still is missing, despite the sleuthing by the department's detectives, An “anonymous psychic who#ikes cats but not pubnlicity” wrote in that he (or she) had had a vision ard it seemed the cat had “been left behind the door ©: om or a closet which looks as if it were not 11 usé€ now—a room. which may be located above the governor's office. The boys searched, but no cat. J

Pass th: Chicken, Boys! |

THE NEW COUNTY council visited the county infirmiry yesterday and was treated to a dandy chicken dimmer, The council, at its first meeting Nov, 27, will co: sider an additional appropriation of $15,000 to finish the new building there, They've been: fiddling 2 ound ‘with that building ever since 1938. And even if they do get it finished, how are they et enough priorities, as well as money, to equip it? . . . Mayor Sullivan came down to his office the ther day and couldn't find Chris Fisher, his messenger “Where's Chris?” he asked. “Taking it easy now hat the Republicans won the election?” He nearly fel. off hjs chair when he learned what had happened Chris had learned the city hall night. watchma; was absent, so he volunteered to take over the job, -nd worked all night. “Now I get it,” said the mayo. “He's trying out jobs to find one that will suit iim after Jan. 1." -

Washington

WAS} INGTON, Nov. §0.~Those pioneers who are

: groping {; find a way of preventing a third world war

are unde going some of the same kind of punishment that pior cers must endure. They always encounter frustratic a, early failure and ridicule. Billy Mitchell was court-martialed by the military bureaucrats, but they couldn't court-martial his ideas. A bullet got Lincoln, but .it couldn't kill what He stood for. So when people get funny about Henry Wallace and his quart of milk a day, it is part of the game. You can bury Vice President Wallace- under a pile of ridicule and prejudice, but you can’t bury the common sense that says people who are willing to work should have enough out of this world’s goods to feed, clothe and sheller them. | You can't bury the common sense that says a civilization intelligent e: ough to conquer nature as ours has ought to try to prevent a third world war. >

Comm, | He is a tall,

|

- his feet ached. The train was. late in getting to

-zoo at the Keystone center,

By Ernie Pyle

The ship sank quickly. There wasn't time to do anything, and there weren't many men left to do it anyhow. The survivors slid off into the water, and got hold of anything that was floating. Some stripped off part of their clothes. Some were already stark naked from the blast. Watson himself left his clothes on, and even grabbed a cap. Watson got onto a raft with 17 others. The raft was a metal pontoon affair, shaped like a huge rectangular doughnut. The men sat on the pontoon, facing inward, with their feet hanging down. There were wooden slats on the bottom. When loaded, the entire raft floated about a foot under water, so the sitting men were actually in water above their waists.

Watch Friends Die, One by One

SOME OF THE MEN had been terribly wounded from the torpedo explosions. One of them died the first night. The next day it was terrible to sit there and see your friends die, helpless to do anything for them except hold them in your arms. Men with broken legs and torn bodies smiled and joked right up to their last breath. But one by one they died, and finally the wounded were all gone. The sun was intense by day, and it was cold by night. The thirst was awful. wo the survivors were able to keep their minds going straight. They would suddenly say, “wel it’s teatime now,” and get up and walk off the raft as though they were walking across a deck. And they didn’t awaken from the delusion. Almost without exception they drowned easily and with happy looks on their faces. It is almost impossible, Watson says, .to describe ‘his mental attempts to transform the delusion into a realization that rescue was aé¢tually at hand. But the story isn't finished yet. I'll tell the rest tomorrow.

Better Stay Home DR. JOHN G. BENSON; the Methodist hospital superintendent, is home from Colorado Springs, Colo., with the advice: Don’t travel unless it’s absolutely

necessary. he had a reservation, he had to stand all the way from Galesburg, Ill, to Chicago--180 long miles. Bet

Chicago so he missed the Indianapolis train on which he had reservations—and had to stand again—all the way to Indianapolis on the next train. The only time he got to rest his feet was when he was in the diner. And the only griping he heard, surprisingly, was one diner who became properly indignant when told he could have only one cup of coffee. . .. A Royal Crown {ruck, heavily loaded, was stopped on Washington between Meridian and Pennsylvania the other morning and the driver couldn’t get it started. So he flagged down a passing truck and was given a shove to get started. The other truck was a CocaCola truck. Competitive co-operation.

Need Any Monkeys?

WHAT TO DO with a couple of monkeys has the|

South side community center in a dither,. The monkeys were left over after the closing of the kiddies’ Mrs. Edna Estle Shaw, assistant director, tried to give the simians to the state conservation department, but an official said “nothing doing-—they aren't indigenous to Indiana.” Anybody got any suggestions? The phone number there is Ma, 2012. , , . Al Walsman, city hospital superintendent, read a note in this column the other day suggesting that there should be signs on Monument Circle indicating compass directions so strangers and elderly people would not get lost on the Circle. Al grabbed the phone and moaned that almost a year ago he purchased (with his own money) four. handsome directional signs—at a cost of $4.50 each—and gave them to the city to be installed on the Circle, but not a one had been used. Then he went to the city sign department and found one of the signs, buried under a pile of junk and produced it as evidence of his complaint. None of the others could be found.

By Raymond Clapper

that it takes to win this war and not consider it common’ sense to try to figure out some way of heading off another one? When you-have world wars twice within one generation, isn't it worth thought and discussion to search for means of preventing a third one? If it is worth anything to try to make another war impossible, then it is worth the effort that men like Vice President Wallace, Secretary Hull, Undersecretary Welles, and a host of private citizens like Wendell Willkie are putting into it. It is worth the effort of Governor Stassen of Minnesota to try to prevent the Republican party from falling into the clutches of the isolationists.

Specific on Purpose Anyway THESE MEN WHO are talking about it are groping. They have no elaborate blueprints. They do not have all the answerf. That doesn't wear me down at all in believing that they are doing an importapt service

and that they need all possible encouragement to g0 ahead.

The train was so crowded that, although]

-problem, knowing that

| Du Pont Helps America Fight For Sixth Time

(This is the fourth of a series).

By CHARLES T. LUCEY Times Special Writer

TWENTY-EIGHT years ago this month powerful squadrons of the British and German fleets raced southward in the Atlantic for .the spectacular battle of the Falkland islands, which was to decide control of the vital sea lanes

around Cape Horn.

To the British went victory and domination of the route to the Chilean nitrate fields. But if Admiral Graf von Spee’s squadron had defeated the English and blocked access-to the nitrate needed for munitions, Britain might have been crippled early in the war, It was a foxy game Germany had tried to play. She had hoarded great stores of nitrate, and one of her scientists, Fritz Haber, had evolved a process called fixation of nitrogen—taking nitrogen from air to produce ammonia and nitric acid—which in time would end German reliance on the natural

nitrates.

#” 2 »

Learned a Lesson

THAT LESSON of absolute dependency upon nitrates to make military explosives wasn’t lost on the world, and when the war ended most of the major nations began to study methods for producing synthetic nitrogen. In America, where everyone was sure the war to end wars had done that, the du Ponts in Wilmington went to work on the nitrogen if the answer were found it" could be applied to peacetime uses to the country’s benefit. And if war did come some day—well, it would be there. : The fundamentals of Haber's process were known. But it was no ready-made thing that could be taken over. There weren't the trained men with the know how, and there wasn’t the machinery. Modifying the Haber formula to provide more efficient nitrogen

ART PLUNDERING

This maze of towers and pipes at one of duPont's plants. is typical of many large-scale industrial chemical operations.

fixation called for reaction chambers and compressors able to withstand up to 15,000 pounds to the square inch at high temperature, where in early post-war years steel that would take 3000 to 4000 pounds under those conditions was rated pretty good.

#” 8

Spent 30 Millions

Du PONT’'S CHEMISTS worked years before the company was ready ‘to build a plant, and $30,000,000 was spent on the prqcess before it reached the place where it became commercially profitable. Because Du Pont and others kept at it, American munitions manufacture today is not at the mercy of Germany's submarine fleet. Nitrate still comes from Chile, but the chemists hard by the Brandywine here have helped to make it less than the life-and-death matter it was in other wars. In nitrogen fixation, air and steam are passed alternately over red-hot coke to create a mixture of gasses, which are separated and purified. Pure nitrogen and hydrogen thus obtained—nitrogen coming from the air and hydrogen from the steam — unite to form ammonia — an operation carried on in reactors under intense pressure and in the presence of a catalyst which causes them to unite. Then the ammonia is “burned” by passing it through red-hot platinum gauze to produce oxides of nitrogen, and these, combined with water, gives the nitric acid, which is the key chemigal in making explosives. When fluffy cotton cellulose, for example, is treated with nitric acid it produces’ nitrocellulose for smokeless powder—the propellant of shells and bullets.

Developments :

SIMILARLY, WHEN toluene, derived from coal tar or petroleum, is treated with nitric acid, the result is the powerful TNT— trinitrotoluene.

Yanks Bring Jeeps and Hot Dogs to 'Pearl

In the first world war, the du Pont-operated Old Hickory powder plant in Tennessee used about 100,000 pounds of nitrogen a day to produce a million pounds of smokeless powder, and this meant 600,000 pounds of natural nitrate —all brought from Chile—had to be supplied daily to this one plant. After the first world war it was believed that 150,000 tons of nitrogen a year would cover all our military requirements, and since it would take time to make guns and armies, even this probably would not be needed until the third year of any future war. No one could foresee then that

" the United States would be vir-

tually a world arsenal 20 years later. But it would be impossible now to supply fully today the am-monia-nitric acid demands of the country from nitrogen obtained from natural nitrate from Chile. Even forgetting about submarines, no such fleet of ships would be available for transport. But because the du Ponts and other representatives of America’s chemical industry had the boldness and imagination to keep up the search for an efficient way to take nitrogen out of the air that is all around us, and then, that done, for ways to utilize this finding in hundreds of peacetime products, America can throw millions of shells at the Germans and Japs today without wondering where the next ones are coming from.

” 2

Industry Is Varied

AGAIN, IT'S the story of American industry, through its willing-° ness to explore and experiment and take a chance, being ready to lay war goods on the line when the nation came to have desperate need of them. Tremendously important as is the story of the development of fixation of nitrogen, you find its like time and again here at du Pont. Despite marvelous achievements in producing nylon, which so

largely replaced silk; dyestuffs which wipe out dependence on Germany, a synthetic rubberlike substance called neoprene, which is superior to rubber for many uses; cellophane and a dozen important plastics, the du Pont name to many has stood for explosives. But in 1938 only 2 per cent of all du Pont business was in military explosives. One small plant was producing smokeless powder for the army and navy. A still smaller one was keeping alive the knowhow of making TNT—maintaining the difference between taking instructions off a paper and having men who know how to do the job.

Saves Men, Space

IT WAS a quality impossible to buy when the country gave du Pont the job of preparing plants whose annual output would exceed the combined output of military explosives in all the country’s earlier wars lumped together. And it isn’t merely making explosives by former methods, but in larger quantities—in TNT, for example, the output per production line is vastly greater than the best marks of 1918. If older methods, rather than du Pont’s highly developed manufacture of today, were being applied to present enormous needs, it would mean much greater manpower and plant capacity requirements, of course. Similarly, Remington Arms, a du Pont affiliate, in delivering in the last half of this year more

small arms and ammunition than the entire country produced in the four years of the first world war, is drawing on research and ex-

periment, its work on design and metallurgy of both ammunition and rifle tools, in the years when nobody cared.

Stine Shaped Pattern

THIS EKNOWHOW that du Pont is able to provide today is cut from the pattern shaped by Dr. Charles M. A. Stine, a vice president and adviser on researc when he went before directory of the ccmpany in 1925 to a a very large sum for research— a sum of such size that even the heads of this gigantic enterprise must have wondered. He told the du Ponts frankly he

This crystal-clear nose of Tk Lycite methyl methacrylate plastic for a Martin bomber: is one of the largest plastie pieces ever manufactured on a mass production basis. Measuring about 4000 square inches in surface area and weighing more than 45 pounds, the three-dimensione al nose even has ribs of Lue cite. The hose is made by the duPont Co. plastics de-, partment.

didn't know whether they'd evep get any of it back. But they wens: along with him, and out of that decision came nylon, neoprene and | scores of chemical developments: that are helping America fight & better war today. There are the du Pont plastics —Ducite, Pyralin, Plastecele and Butacite. Lucite went into those “cat-eyes” set in little metal standards along thé highway

which are illumined by your heads Hi

lights to tell you where the curves are, and into dental surgical reflectors carrying Vi to the interior of the body. % Today it is one of’ the transe parent synthetics that inclose the nose and bombardier position in U. 8S. bombers flying over Europe and in| the Solomons. The other ' plastics have ope to war similarlpy

Colors Hold !

Du PONT DYESTUFFS are give | ing American soldiers colors that | will “hold,” despite storm and | tropical sun and punishing wear, Lack of fast colors, which means" fading uniforms that showed up to the enemy in combat, cost many & life in the first world war. Neoprene, out of du Pont’s labs oratories, is going into barrage balloons and vital warship and combat tank parts. Every pound of nylon made is going into war uses which, fer military re oe cannot be discussed. Cellophane is protecting the rations of U. 8, ! roops in combat, and a special h-tenacity rayon, stronger than ' Hat other fiber used for tires; helping to keep a motorized iy : rolling. eh This is the sixth war du has helped the United States fight. iy

BUY LAND FOR

Of Pacific,’ but They Yearn for Juke Box

the island by 250-to-1. Some service men have managed to date French girls. The native women are bulky, and wear gaudy wrap-around skirts and blouses termed by the Americans “mother hubbards” as they walk barefoot along the asphalt streets, usually carrying one or two children. In the back country known as the “bush” the Red Cross sponsors occasional dances with music provided by army orchestras. Many French girls are invited, and usually appear with their parents. wn Miss George Wilcox of Lenoir, N. C., a Red Cross recreation worker here since March, told me that the American servicemen miss most of {all American girls. “Hundreds of boys have told me that they were grateful just for the chance to meet a woman who could speak English,” she said. The troops, however, work hard. They . undergo rigorous training, which includes long marches daily. Formidable defenses have been erected. The army and navy have taken over Noumea's hotels which were designed elaborately for wealthy

For the first time our side is feeling. the lift of military successes. As President Roosevelt says, it looks a: if the turning point of the war has been reached Every military man that I hear discuss the subject is positive that much, hard fighting still lies ahead. Many more American lives, and thousands of lives on both sides in this war, Will be paid before it is over.

It's 170rth the Effort

WE {NOW A LITTLE of the enormous effcrt that is going into the winning of this war, Deaths of two of our admirals irf¢action have been announced this we-k. Some of our generals and colonels have had clo.e calls in Africa. In spite of the griping of some congressmen, many things will yet have to be taken z vay from civilians to supply this war.

How can you consider it common sense to do all By Eleanor Roosevelt six of the Hague convention.

; : In a specidl communique, the So-

HINGTON, Thursday.—While I was gone, I every American worker for the Red Cross in this' . from the Chinese embassy one of the most country must have a great sense of pride when they| inigrmation bureau uote 2 | realize what their contributions have meant to the letter Written to Russian officials by interest ng gifts which has ever been sent to the eoble. Who have. been blitzéd in 'G . Norman Foerster, a captured offipreside: t,- a little box of tea which is over 200 years P Dn mobile Se Ban, cer of the “4th company of the speold! I didn't suppose tea could be any good Which plies, the Red Cross has greatly helped, as have alll Co. STVice battalion of the Gerwas kept for such a long time, the other agericies and even individuals in this coun-| P20 Ministry of foreign affairs.” but the Chinese ambassador and try, But the Rad Cross contribution is the result of| Before leaving for Russia,” FoerMadame Wei tell me that this is the work of so many people in the United States, that|Ster Wrote to the Soviets, “Maj. von exceptionally good, and my hus- I think it truly represents to the people of Great uensberg conveyed to us Ribbenband and I are looking forward trop’s (German foreign minister)

These men are all vague. Of course they are vague. Any working arrangement that comes out of this war will have to be developed among the nations on our side. That means negotiations, give-and-take, experiments and mistakes until you get something.

The most specific thing that we as a people can offer now is a strong public sentiment to support our government in trying to keep the war won. We can’t . win it on our own coastline and we can’t keep it won, no matter how many airplanes and how much navy we plant around our 12,000 miles of coastline— not to mention our 6000 miles of land frontiers and 15,000 miles of Alaska coastline. Nobody can be specific about methods at this time. | We can be specific about the purpose. We can be specific in insisting that the heavy price now being paid to win this war won't be thrown away on crackpot dreams that the rest of the world! can go to hell without dragging us long.

ARMY, NAVY U

30,000,000 Acres Pus chased By Government | | For War Service. - |

WASHINGTON, Nov. 20 (U..P), —The office of war information res ported yesterday that since Pearl Harbor the army and navy have purchased, or are in the process of purchasing, private property equal to the combined areas of Massachiis : setts, Connecticut, Rhode I : Delaware, the District of Columbis and four-fifths of New Jersey. i

Before the war is over some i 30,000,000 acres—equal to the — of all New England—will be over by the government, OWI The land is used for army camp naval bases, air fields, hou areas, bombing ranges, a fields and shipyard dry docks. The 121,368 tracts marked out date embrace 12,000,000 acres val at_$284,000,000. ; "Other information reported | OWI about the army and navy § ing over private property: In Atlantic City 47 hotels taining 11,000 rooms were

LAID TO NAZIS

Some Units In Occupied Lands Had No Other Duty, Russ Say.

MOSCOW, Nov. 20: (U. P)— Russia charged today that Germany (had created special military units, directed by the German foreign ministry, to plunder objects of historical and cultural value in Russia and occupied Euroge. It said these units, known as “special service battalions” had taken, museum exhibits, art treasures, tapestries, books, paintings and other objects of value from many Russian cities in violation of article

main a few days and then depart on secret missions. Service men poke curiously among the red-roofed houses, peer into deserted shops and try out their book-French on the residents. The Anglo-American influence is evident throughout the city. Painted under such French signs as “stationnement inderdit” and “sens interdit” are the translations “parking forbidden” and “one-way traffic.” Sidewalk merchants do a rushing business selling sandwiches and lemonade, virtually the only drink now available other than milk and water. Since arrival of the Americans, men have outnumbered women on

By CHARLES P. ARNOT United Press Staff Correspondent NOUMEA, New Caledonia (Dee layed)—The Yanks have brought the Stars and Stripes, jeeps and hot dogs to this “pearl of the Pacific,” but wish that someone would send them a juke box. During the eight months since the first American troops landed here, Noumea has been changed from a sleepy French colonial seaport 1000 miles northeast of Sydney, Australia, to a military outpost. Pamphlets published - before the war to lure tourists to the island described it as the “Pearl of the Pacific” because of its moderate climate, scenic beauties and strategic location in the South seas. The island .is about 240 miles long, 30 miles wide and is surrounded by coral reefs. Its normal population included some 17,000 whites, 12,000 Javanese and Tonkinese and about 28,000 native bushmen known locally as “Canaques.” The majority of the population actively support the united nations, and most of the Frenchmen wear uniforms of Gen. Charles de Gaulle’s fighting French forces. Condemnation of the Vichy regime is heard frequently.

;

HOLD EVERYTHING

: WA receive

Britain the heart of our pedple. orders:

to trying it with real excitement. I wonder if every woman who returns from a long trip feels as I do, that until she has had her hair and nails done, she isn’t completely normal. I spent an hour and a half getting myself fixed up yesterday afternoon. An old friend lunched with me and late in the afternoon I visited Mr. Norman Davis at the ./merican Red Cross headquarters to tell him what I could of the numerous Red Cross centers, which {1 had seen in Great Britain, I think that

Of the work that the Red Cross is doing for the men, nurses &nd officers, wherever they may be in the world, I can, of course, only speak of what I saw in Great Britain. If having places filled with boys is any indication that you are providing them with something they need, then the Red Cross can be very well satisfied with the work which it has done.

In the Red Cross clubs, of course, the army quite rightly insists that the men pay for their beds and

“Comb thoroughly all scientific

institutions, institutes, libraries and palaces; sift through the archives and lay hands on whatever is of definite value.’ ”

The loot, Foerster said, was re-

moved by special squads, which in some cases dismantled parts of

food. However, the charge is very nominal, “two and; buildings to get their plunder. The .six,” which is about 43 cents for bed and breakfast,

and 20 cents for a meal consisting of three courses and either tea or coffee.

treasures were sent back to Germany as fast as they were remeved from Russian buildings.

So rich are the island’s deposits of iron, chrome and nickel that compasses rarely are accurate here. New Caledonia’s capital and principal sea port, Noumea, no longer is sleepy. Today trucks filled with troops and supplies rumble continually through the ‘streets. Jeep drivers have made pedestrians alert, and frequently make them jump. Everyone, except the outnumbered

natives, seems to be in a hurry.

Warships slip into the harbor, re-

“Gosh, Homer, what'll we do when we can’t ask for a dime for ‘a cuppa coffee?”

tourists, and other buildings—including the former Japanese 'consulate which now is a naval dispensary, There is no evidence of resentment among the French here over American occupation of the island. The tri-color of France and the stars ‘and stripes fly side by side over public buildings. A French girl I met in one of these buildings remarked: “Thank God the ericans arrived before the Japs.” 4 |

over by the land division of justice department 48 hours the war department requested action; and the world’s. largest ho tel—the Stevens, in Ehloago— commandeered in one day. The old Chicago coliseum, whic! has housed everything from politic convenfions to circuses and is now an army air corps pond The air corps also one 500,000 acre estat: room house,