Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 2 December 1942 — Page 13
} ‘WEDNESDAY, DEC. 2, 1942
e Indianapolis
( ffm g Hoosier Vagabond = By Ernie Pye
" to cover
. on ‘this &
| Sisters,”
WIT! THE AMERICAN FORCES IN ALGIERS, Dec. 1 (ly wireless).—From now onward, stretching for mor 1s and months into the. future, life is completely « ianged for thousands of American boys on
this sid: of the earth. For at last they are in there ’ fighting. x The jump from camp life into front-line living is just as great as the original jump from civilian life into the army. Only those who served in the last war can conceive of the makeshift, deadly urgent, always-moving-onward complexion of front-line existence. And existence is exactly the word: it is nothing more. The last of the comforts are gone. From now on you sleep in bedrolls under little tents. You
wash w' never and wherever you can. You carry
food on our back when you are fighting. You dig ditches : « r protection from bullets and from the chill north v id off the Mediterranean. There are no more ho water taps. There are no post exchanges where y Wher you speak to a civilian you have to wrestle | with a /(oreign language. You carry just enough clothing 0 cover you, and no more,, You don’t lug any knicl inacks at all. :
The 1 ‘ell Dressed Arab
WHE! OUR TROOPS made their first landings in Nort!) Africa they went four days without even blankets just catching a few hours’ sleep on the ground, : Every ody either lost or chucked aside some of his equi nent. Like most troops going into battle for the (st time, they all carried too much at first. Gradual they shed it. The boys tossed out personal gear frei their musette bags and filled them with
ammuni mn. The « untryside for 20 miles around Oran was
CAP] JOHNNY RICKLES (the lawyer) writes heme fron “somewhere in England” that the people over her: haven't any idea what a blackout really is. John sa (| he had apologized to so many lamp posts ‘after buiiping into them in the dark that he blushes : when he sees one in daylight. . . . Carl Cotterman, the photographer, has just been promoted to a first lieutenancy. He's in the signal corps, at Camp Phillips, Kas. . . . Firemen were called to an address in the 1600 block, Cornell ave. when occupants of the house dis~ covered smoke pouring out of the attic. Dashing up to the attic, the firemen extinguished the flames, Then they called the occupant of the house and explained the reason for the fire. “The flue clear to the roof—just stops up here in they told him. “Well, I've lived here three never knew that,” said the tenant.
w Gas Hoarders!
TION, ALL you gasoline hoarders! Better fingers crossed and hope you don’t have a use Harry Wheeler, of the Spann company’s department, tells us that if you have sev-
doesn’t the attic years an
Hey, ]
ATTE! keep you fire. Be: JAnsuranc
1 eral gall 18 of gasoline stored in your house or your
d you have a fire, you may not be able to your fire insurance. That's right. The fire insurance policy in Indiana specifies that the policy shall be null and void if you keep “gasoline or other explosive materials” on the premises.. If 1ou don’t believe it, read lines 22 to 27 of your poli'y. Somewhere in the policy, Harry tells us, therr 1 a sentence exempting the amount of explosive initerial—such as naphtha for cleaning—required to meet the “exigencies and the use of the occupan:.” But, says Harry, this isn’t broad enough ve gallons of gasoline for your car. In the nsurance companies have been fairly liberal ore, but they're likely to crack down now,
garage, {1 ccllect or standard
past, the
Washington
WAS! INGTON, Dec, 2.—People who think they are talkii g common sense say that we ought to win the war | 2fore we start talking about what we will do with the victory, That does sound like sense until yu thir a minute. It does make sense that Gen. Marshal and Admiral King should not stop working on the war to draw up peace blueprints. You ‘certainly don’t. want the joint chiefs of staff to stop fighting to work out peace terms.
But I don’t think we are count-
ing on Admiral King and Gen. Marshall to work out postwar problems. That job is supposed to be done by the state department principally, and they haven't much else to do now except that. : Why can’t the war go on while the stdte department crew, which long ago was set ‘up to work on peace terms, goes. ahead with its ‘work? hat won't interfere with the production ‘experts v ho are rejiggering the airplane program or . ‘the -ordn:nce program. ; ‘Why ‘an’t Wendell Willkie or Secretary Hull or ‘Sumner Welles or Vice President Wallace discuss ‘what we want to get out of the war? How does - that Intorfere with Henry Kaiser's ship production or with he struggles at Ford’s Willow Run plant? How do: that interfere with the training of naval fliers, an with the army’s training of ground crews? ‘How doc: it interfere with anybody who is on the fighting :ide in this war?
We Should Have Started Earlier
I CAN IMAGINE that it would encourage a lot of pare:'s whose sons are going into this war to feel tha! their boys were not going to be risked just to clear the way for a third world war. It makes more seine to fight this war if there is some assurance that we :re going to reduce the risks of another one
My Day
~ \WASH INGTON, Tuesday.—Last night T went with Mr. and irs. Hopkins and Mrs. Litvinoff to see Katharine Correll’s very remarkable production “The Three y Anton Chekov. a little difficult for me to pull myself out of the present into the mood for real appreciation of the characters who performed their parts in a little Russian provincial town in the year 1900. Once the transition was accomplished, however, I was able to appreciate and enjoy this very fine performance, I have today a long letter which brings up the whole question of what constitutes war work for women. I think we should face this question realistically and cacknowladsez the fact that the
It was
| can buy cigarets. There are no movies. *
strewn with overcoats, field packets and mess kits as the soldiers moved on the city.
| Arabs will be going around for a whole generation
clad in odd Pleces of American army uniforms.
Camped in Every Way
AT THE MOMENT our troops are bivouacked for miles around each of three large centers of occupation—Casablanca, Oran and Algiers. They are consolidating, fitting in replacements, making repairs— spending a few days taking a deep breath before moving on to other theaters of action. They are camped in every conceivable way. In the city of Oran some are billeted in office buildings, hotels and garages. Some are camping in parks and big vacant lots on the edge of town. Some are miles
away, out in the country, living on treeless stretches:
of prairie. They are in tiny groups and in huge
batches.
Some of the officers live in tents and sleep on the :
ground. Others have been lucky enough to commandeer a farm house or a barn, sometimes even a modern villa. The tent camps look odd. The little low tents hold two men apiece and stretch as far as you can see.
Everything Is Changed Now
LIFE IS FAR from static. Motor convoys roar along the highways. Everything is on a basis of “not a minute to spare.” There is a new spirit among the troops—a, spirit of haste. : Planes pass constantly, eastbound. New detachments of troops wait for orders to move on. Old detachments tell you the stories of their first battle, and conjecture about the next one. People you've only recently met hand you slips of paper with their home addresses and say, “You know, in case something happens, would you mind writing ,.. ” At last we are in it up to our necks, and everything is changed, even your outlook on life, Swinging first and swinging to kill is all that matters now.
Inside Indianapolis By Lowell Nussbaum
what with every home a miniature gas station. So get rid of that gas, or keep on keeping your fingers crossed.
Sugar Substitute
NEED MORE SUGAR? The Indiana Beekeepers’ association suggests using honey. And for the benefit of families or persons who object to honey’s flavor, the association suggests cooking the honey. That kills its flavor—but not its sweetness. And, asks the association, did you ever try apple butter sweetened with honey? Sounds interesting. . .. Sergt. Bob Hair, formerly with the United Press, writes from Camp Atterbury that he enjoyed the story the other day about Howard Friend “swiping” (accidentally) Wray Fleming’s overcoat and how Wray traced the coat through a check stub made out to a certain fraternity. We didn’t mention the name of the fraternity. Sergt. Hair, a friend of both Friend and Fleming, thinks we should. All right—it’s Lambda Chi Alpha. . . . Russell Campbell, secretary to Mayor Sullivan for nearly four years and who expects to change jobs about the first of the year, is reported to have the inside track on a new job as public relations man for the state OPA office.
Want a Commission? THE CIVILIAN advisory committee helping the navy find officer material from various types of specialists is being swamped by applicants these days, but they want still more. The number of rejections is unusually high. The reason, Walter Hess tells us, is that so many applicants ‘are unfamiliar’ with the qualifications. Applicants must be under 28, in good health and be specialists in certain lines. The navy is particularly interested in electrical, mechanical and civil engineers, accountants, men with construction (not house building) experience, and chaplains. If you qualify, see Mr. Hess at 120 W. North st., or phone Ri, 5566. . . . In last Saturday’s profile of the week, on Daniel J. Tobin, we didn’t give you Dan’s middle name because we didn't know it. In case you're interested, it's Joseph,
By Raymond Clapper
Instead of inviting another one as was the case before. Actually we haven't started planning soon enough. North Africa catches us with territory that we don’t quite know what to do about. Why are we having to improvise our relief policy in North Africa? Why is it that we were not all set to go? The North African expedition has been in the wind since July. But we are still canvassing the united nations as to the setup that Governor Lehman is to have. He will start as a purely American administrator until the united nations agreement is worked out so that he can become the united nations administrator. If we had started earlier to plan on what we would do with the victory, the united nations would have been all set to move into North Africa behind the troops.
It's All Part of the War
NOW CHURCHILL is trying to persuade the Italians to throw over Mussolini and make peace. If they don’t do it voluntarily the allies will knock Italy out within a few months and then we will have another rehabilitation problem on our hands. The so-called postwar job isn’t any longer something in the distant future. It goes right along with the progress of the war, and grows as the allies take over new territory. That is all part of the war. We plan next year’s weapons “while we make this year’s. While the assembly lines are busy on one model, the machine shops are making the tools for the imroved model that is to follow. The two jobs go on together, and that is accepted wartime and peacetime industrial practice. But when you get into the field of statesmanship, and want to consider the next step there, or what to do about territory that even now is being taken over from the enemy, somebody shouts the old familiar cue: “Don’t think about what to -do with the victory until it is won.” One day, I hope somebody who doesn’t know any better will break the rules and yell back, “Why not?”
By Eleanor Roosevelt
reached the age for school or college, and she has gifts t which can be employed outside the home, she most
certainly should employ them. There are many women with younger éhildren, who must have help in. the home in order to do this, and who are thus enabled to work at some occupation for which they are trained, or are capable. of undertaking. There are many women who are particularly gifted in performing household tasks, and that may be their best war work. : or I know of many older women who are today relieving younger women by running their homes for them efficiently and well. These women would do, perhaps, a very inferior job in an office or factory, or even in some voluntary organizations, but here, in the work they know and like, they do superlatively good jobs. This may be so of young women with a special gift and preference for this kind of work and, of course, there are things one can do in a home that bear on
Flying Course Highlights War Spirit at Howe
Laurel Hesoun (left) drops her compact into the “Glamour Salvage” scrap box as
Jane Clark digs deep in her pocketbook for her metal lipstick container.
Alumni in Service Listed, Student Council Directs Drives in East Side School
HOWE HIGH SCHOOL is only five years old. Last spring it graduated its first full-fledged senior
class.
Few alumni are yet in service but the 18-19 draft will
catch many.
The few in service are now being catalogued by the
Hi-Y club and plans are organized for an increase in the files as the younger part of the younger generation
goes off to war. But that is a/ small part of the Howe war activities. Like every high school in the country it is organized on .the Victory Corps basis but heads up in a streamlined agency known as the Victory War council.
” #" ” SUPPLEMENTING the student council, the war council is a smaller organization capable of handling the newly imposed war activities with greater dispatch. It is composed of four seniors, three juniors, two sophomores and a freshman who work in co-
By CHARLES T. LUCEY Times Special Writer WHEN A DESPERATE French government turned to Glenn L. Martin early in 1940 for airplanes with which it hoped to stop Hitler, the Baltimore aircraft manufacturer picked up the phone and called Albert Kahn, the industrial architect, at Detroit. He needed a plant to fulfill new contracts with France, he explained, and it had to be built immediately. Architect Kahn listened, and then told Mr. Martin that what he asked was impossible. But, he said, he would try. Nearly a half-million square feet of floor space was the goal. The next day he and his staff flew into Baltimore. The following- day contracts were being drawn about one an hour—excavating, steel, plumbing, one after another. The next day steam shovels were digging deep into the yellow clay along the banks of the Chesapeake. On the 77th day Martin men were building planes in one end of the giant new factory as construction workers finished the other end. It took six months from drawing board to the first airplane. In 10 months, over-all, the entire order of more than 100 bombers— big indeed for those days—was finished.
Offer as Much a
Below is one of several eye-witness reports written by Sherman Montrose, Acme Newspictures cameraman, who landed with the marines on Gaudalcanal. He has just returned to San Francisco from his assignment.
By SHERMAN MONTROSE
SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 2.—Our marines, army and navy and coast guard men in the South Sees— they ain’t got no candy. They call’ it “pogie-bait.” They could take the bombings -and the snip- : ing and they : could get along without vegt etables and fresh meat. They wouldn't yearn so much for the bright lights and the movies and the girl friends—if only’ they had
Mr. Montrose just candy. And there isn’t any. It’s hard to realize how keen is the craving for sweets until you've gone without “pogie-bait” for many a long month. . The term dates back to old sailship days. It seems there was a captain whose cabinboy, named “Pogie,” could be bribed only with offers of candy. Hence, “Pogie-' bait.”
some candy —
operation with Miss Florence Guild, senior sponsor and head of the English department; C. R. Clayton, vice principal, and C. M. Sharp, principal. An important innovation this first semester is the aeronautics course under the direction of Milton Gamble. But even more startling is that planned for the second term of the year. With the beginning of the second semester Miss Anna K. Suter will teach a similar course for the girl students. Miss Suter was chosen to teach the course because of her knowledge of mathematics and love of flying. To more thoroughly prepare herself, Miss Suter is now taking flying lessons.
of the American aircraft industry in moving from a near-starvation basis to one which, in the year since Pearl Harbor, has seen more airplanes built than in all the years since the first world war. Boeing, Douglas, Curtiss-Wright,
Consolidated, Bell, Lockheed, Re-
public North America—they’ve al} performed spectacularly in the conversion which this year sees planes worth close to $5,000,000,000 rolling down production lines to blast the axis the world around. Merely adding floor space wasn’t the trick that enabled the aircraft industry to produce fighting airplanes at a faster clip than any nation had ever achieved hefore. If no more could have been done, some of the Americans beating off Japs at Guadalcanal and dumping bombs on Brest today would be grounded for lack of planes. But the American aircraft industry’was able to combine a new vastness of factories with a backlog of fine research knowledge and. engineering skill built up in lean years. The huge orders for war planes enabled them to go out and buy the machine tools they had designed and dreamed of — but
ae
Martin Factory Built in 77
THAT'S THE TYPICAL story
Ad
Miss Luella Luke R. N., (second from left) instructs Mary Catherine Lyday (left),
Harriet Johnson (standing) and Martha Ann Stinnett (kneeling) in first aid.
The two instructors in aeronautics, Milton Gamble (left) and Miss Anna K. Suter (second from right), explain a few of the finer points to seniors Tom Russell and Ruthanne Gossom.
AND THE STUDENTS of Howe high school are already getting a taste of what the future will bring. One day a week the cafeteria goes on a meatless day. The
food classes also are experiment’
ing in the same field with what are known as “Victory Meals.” Physical fitness is stressed as in other schools and continuous
Days Typifies Speed of
couldn't afford—in the 20 years
after the first world war.
” # ”
Designs Standardized
TO ALL THIS NEW facility for
production they added standariza-
tion wherever they could, because it’s axiomatic in mass production that the fewer the designs or models, the greater the number of units produced.
An industry in which -craftsmen had worked individually at their benches, tediously and slowly turning out parts for airplanes which often were virtually cus-tom-made, now took full advantage of automatic or semi-au-tomatic multiple-station tools performing many operations at once.
The particular trade secrets which each plane manufacturer had develuoped in his own plants over the years were made avail. able to all other aircraft makers. It wouldn’t be done in peacetime, but this was war. It wasn’t long ago that you could build an airplane with almost as much individuality as a bride selecting living-room wallpaper. The differences might be only in small details, but they frequently barred the standardization that ‘means production speed. Aluminum alloy tubing, for axample—and there is tremendous yardage of it going into every plane—used to come in more
Americans in Solomons Crave Candy; s $100 for Small Portion
Highest bid was $100 for 24 bars of chocolate.” It ‘was refused.
supply of chocolate or any other candy doesn’t exist. If and when it does, the sky's the limit.
Pilots ‘landing ‘ on - Henderson
field, ‘Guadalcanal, can ask and get their own prices if they bring in a spot of pogie-bait, Fighting men line the runways when the big B-17's land, waiting for a
A' 'horsé-trading, marine and a | | sharp pilot, can dicker for an hour |
| the slower screw
than 2000 shapes and sizes, in seven alloys. When the aircraft expansion program was getting under way the government went to the plane makers to ask that there be standardization here. Plane parts never could be turned out fast if there was to be such diversity.
” ” ” THE AIRCRAFT engineers went
to work. Today there are three .
alloys instead of seven, and fewer than 300 sizes and shapes as compared to 2000-plus. A change like this couldn't be mace overnight. It had to be done with the most careful planning so that it did not interfere with
production. Some companies had as many as 50 engineers at work on the problem for a month. If standardizing meant going to a larger tubing on some plans, that meant added weight, and added weight meant mew structural investigations. But the plane makers managed it, and many other changeovers like it. The benefits. that flow from such standardization are not limited to greater output of planes, important as this is—they also mean smaller stocks of supply parts to be transported half
around the world to air bases
which must be ready to repair shell-torn bombers and fighters. Production engineering has completely made over many jobs in the drive to reach the nation’s goal of 60,000 planes this year and 125,000 next. . : o ~ ”
Process Simplified
CONSIDER A TYPICAL drill press operation, for example, in the big Martin plant. In other days, the workman took a few steps to get his piece of material, walked back to the machine, placed the piece in the drill press vise, brought the cutting drill down from above to do the required machining. v “Finished, he lifted the cutting tool out of the way, unscrewed the vise, removed the piece on which he had worked, took a step or two to get rid of the finished piece, went back to the machine to brush away the steel shavings resulting, and then started all over. Lil Today, he is sitting instead of standing, and merely reaches out an arm for the piece of material. His vise closes about it with a single turn of a lever rather than
»
‘turning. He
scrap and war bond and war stamp drives are held. Students of Howe high school march pace by pace with young America.
Plane Output
with a man using “bumping” hammers to mold the piece over a wood form. Glenn Martin's tool designers, given quantities which justified spending money for big machine tools, built- a metal stretching press operated hydraulically which does the same thing in a minute
or two, 2 =» ”
Giant Camera Used
AT THE MARTIN plant you see what is said to be the largest camerg in the world, doing work that dozens of draftsmen might have, done by slower methods,
- Here the most intricate drawings
are reproduced on metal tems plates, or patterns, and men work to ideritical size from these rather than f{ransposing from drawings on paper. Aircraft war production councils —one on the East coast, one on
the West coast—have been formed
through which all units of the industry are pooling knowledge of their methods for the benefit bf all. | The' councils are divided into several active committees which aren’t merely giving lip service to the broad wisdom of co-operating but sare actually sharing’ the know-how which has taken years to develop. There's the production commit= tee of the East.coast council, for example, headed by the keen Scot who i$ Martin’s factory manager, Thomas B. Soden. Within the last few weeks the committee has met at the Republic plant on Long Island, the Curtiss-Wright plant at Buffalo, and at Martin's, With each meeting, its meme bers have gone out into the plants to study and inspect one department after another, each to see whether someone else is doing a
certain job better than it is being °
done in his own plant. Details of production to which a layman may be blind in walking down a l6ng production line are seen in stantly by these men who have spent their lives at it.
HOLD EVERYTHING
A a ep ss % igs en ala. baie
i i i + { § } | i i i 3 4 1 | :
| ! | | | | | |
There's no. price ceiling on
; first thing every woman with a family has to do is to
: | meet her family obligations. If her children have *
the war effort directly. Knitting, sewing and cooking
: : gl. .Lnere crack at bargaining with the men for meh in the armed. forces can be done 4t home. | pogie-bait"—because Pd =