Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 3 December 1942 — Page 17

THURSDAY, DEC. 3, 1942

The Indianapolis Times

a

SECOND SECTION

Hoosier Vagabond

WI''H THE AMERICAN FORCES IN ALGIERS, Dec, 3 By Wireless) .—Many of the red-tapish formalities ti 1t are common to the military are cast aside when ne army is in the field, moving relentlessly forwar |. At an American airdrome, where two of us 1 correspondents went to arrange transportation farther east, a major said: “Aw, to hell with your permits. I haven't got time to look at them. Just camp here in your bedrolls and I'll put you on the first plane going your way.” Many a good clerk in Washington would turn gray at such clerical simplicity. I wish you could see this airdrome. It is one we captured from the French after hard fighting. Ciouds of dust hang over it constantly, raised by the propellers of planes taking off and landing. Fighters circle continuously overhead like protecting hawks. The sky is alive with work planes, rushing stuff to the front. They come singly and in vast formations. They land, load up, and take right off again. Luxti;y liners that once carried you from coast to coas’, now stripped down inside and painted olive drab, w:iddle off the ground with unbelievably big loads of soldiers, ammunition, supplies of all kinds.

A Sccie of Intense Activity

JEEI'"| DASH around by the score. haul thy

Great trucks ‘ loads to the doors of planes. Ground crews live in itches right alongside the runways. Officers throw tli ir bedrolls onto the floor of a barracks building and just step across the road into the darkness for toilei. purposes. The ificers are dirty, unshaven and elem. You can harg!y tell them from the privates. Flat (res are patched right on the field. Great

Ing side Indianapolis By Lowell Nussbaum

FOUR :-YEAR-OLD Verna Messick, 2208 Talbott, wanted some fudge Tuesday evening. Her mother, Mrs. Hallia J. Messick, discovered she was out of cocoa and told Verna to run next door and borrow a bit. While Mrs. Messick was changing shoes, she heard the little girl call her. Without waiting to put on her shoes, Mrs. Messick ran out onto the front porch in her stocking feet, to see what had happened and found Verna had been unable to get in the neighbor’s door. Just then the door to the Messick home blew shut, and locked, leaving Mrs. Messick (stocking-footed) and Verna shivering outside in the cold, and little 6-month-old Susan stranded in the house by herself. Mrs, Messick tried all the windows and toors, and finally got neighbors to call police. The helped her break open a door pane, after which she ‘hawed out her feet. The fudge was forgotten.

Around he-Town

PIECES OF GLASS from the champagne bottle used by M:¢. Margaret Schricker Robbins in christen-

HINT VICTIMS IN BOSTON FIRE

By Ernie Pyle

mounds of gasoline cans are stacked about the field. Protective revetments for fighter planes, made of adobe bricks, were built by the French before we came. Around the edges of the field lie heaped-up wrecks of French and American planes shot down in the first few days of fighting. Old French planes line the field. You can see bullet holes in the walls of your barracks.

There Will Be No Miscues

IN TOWN, life is not quite so urgent. The necessary office work of the army seems about the same wherever it is done, and the army is adept at setting up new headquarters in strange places.

Officers are billeted in the hotels. Many of the troops are billeted in a big modern garage. Two officers’ messes have been set up, one at a hotel and one at a restaurant. They serve American food, | i used many Sx esus brought in by convoy. For there is little food in this| fire, was advanced today by medical country. Our meals have been excellent, far better, experts, chemists and pathologists. than civilians in England are used to. The latest victim was Lieut. WilLife here in town is on a rather ridiculous, half- liam Langheimer, Winchester, Mass normal-half-battle basis. I sleep in my bedroll on| nv oericer, who was one of the 78 a hard stone floor, but I can have breakfast served persons under treatment for urns grandly there in bed by a French waiter in a white and pneumonia coat! : ; I can have a luxurious hot bath, but I have to| ndiseio a Saseons fumes wash my own clothes. There is no soap or tolleb| Sore broke out Saturday night paper except what we carry with us. Yet champagne developed after it was disclosed that Is abundant and cheap. : a number of the 139 still in hosSentries guard all the buildings taken over by the pitals had developed lung ailments army. You can telephone from one building to an- Medical examiners said there Was other, using the same secret code exchanges we used something deadly in the smoke from in England, the fire, possibly fumes from smoulA press censorship office has been set up, and a| dering fire-proofing paint, that base censor office for mail. Letters are already ar- “gassed” the victims as soldiers riving from home. The town as a whole has been turned back to the| = gassed in the last War, French, but the army keeps a hand raised and there Something’ in Smoke “There is no question there was

will be no miscues. something poisonous in that smoke besides carbon monoxide and flame,” 'Dr, Timothy Leary, medical examfier of Suffolk county, said. “It is probable that the cases came from the firé-proofing paint or furnishings in the club.” Dr. William J. Brickley, medical examiner at the Northern mortuary, said many of the victims “had the appearance of the soldiers who were gassed in the first world war.” Dr. William H. Watters, assistant medical examiner to Dr. Leary at the Southern mortuary, said that although deaths were recorded as from carbon monoxide poisoning and inhalation of smoke, “we have a feeling that there was something else associated with the inhalation —something else went in with the smoke and flame.” State Attorney General Robert T. Bushnell yesterday promised to expose every person in any way responsible for the tragedy. He also hinted at “indictments for manslaughter” against an undetermined number of persons, possibly some public officials. The grand jury convened yesterday to investigate the fire,

Medical Examiners Think Smoke and Flames

Contained Poison.

BOSTON, Mass., Dec. 3 (U, P.)— The possibility that poisonous fumes emanated frcm burning decorations

Six months more and he'd been 45—and draft-proof. . Want to buy a riding horse? Bill Eggert, Times sports writer, has decided to sell his before he goes to the army next week. Purtiest little horse you ever saw, he says.

Missed All the Fun

JAMES P, TRETTON, vice president and general manager of the street railway, missed all the “fun” this week. He's been confined to his home with a cold several days and didn’t get to help handle the crowds of new streetcar and bus passengers with the start of gas rationing. .,, A patron of the stockyard busses wants to know “how about stopping men from smoking on the! busses during the peak of defense

worker jams each morning and evening? The ladies are getting headaches from so much smoke—and griping about the situation.” , . . Note to. Jim Carroll: One of your telephones in the street railway bus station on the circle ought to be named “Jesse James.” It held me up for a couple of nickels last night— gave me the busy signal and then kept my nickles— twice. Wotta gyp! ,..P. S. It’s the first on the left.

It’s Just a Rumor

WERE GASSED

Here's a Takeoff That Didn't Take ~

ACT I—As this U. S. marine corps fighter plane was being launched from a catapault aboard ship,

a cable broke.

The take-off lost force. Under its own power, the plane picked up speed and launched

itself. ' The above picture was taken just as the left wing was “falling off” and the ship was about to spin into the sea because of lack of speed.

)

ACT II—The plane plunged into the sea and here the pilot balances himself on a wing ready to jump into the water. He already has launched his rubber boat, just to left and under the fighter’s tail

surfaces.

(Navy photos from Acme).

7

y

American Planes Still on Secret List

Are Enough to ‘Make the Angels Gasp’

TOBIN SEEN AS LABOR CHOICE FOR WMC POST

Green avd Mirey Murray Likely to Back Him If Asked for

Suggestions. =

WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 (U. P.).— Organized labor leaders may renew their appeal to Président Roosevelt today for appointment of President Daniel J. Tobin of the A. F of L, Teamsters union as manpower chief and secretary of labor. ; The president meets his Amere ican Federation of Labor and Cone

-| gress of Industrial Organizations

labor war board a day after Interior Secretary Harold L. Ickes appare

ently was removed from considerae tion as the man to direct the new manpower program. Mr. Roosevel§ will discuss the manpower problem with the A. F. of L.-C. I, O, board and, if asked for suggestions, A. I,

. {of L. President William Green and

C. I. O. President Philip Murray can be expected again to nominate Mr. Tobin, who lives in Indianapolis,

What About Miss Perkins?

Ickes had been offered the post off secretary of labor, with the mane power program to be put under him But Mr, Roosevelt made him petroe leum administrator for war yestere day, vesting in him new responsie bilities over motor and heating fuel supplies. It was understood thay that was in lieu of the labor post.

retary, Frances Perkins, was no# clear in the light of yesterday's events which upset reported plans for Mr. Ickes to take the labor post, Miss Perkins to become federal see curity administrator, and Manpowep Commissioner Paul V. McNutt te become interior secretary.

F. D. R. Didn't Insist

Informed sources said the 68 year-old Ickes turned down the labor post because he did not bee lieve he had the physical strength for the job. Secretary Ickes, it was understood, offered to take it if the president thought it was absolutely necessary, But Mr. Roosevelt placed no such label of essentiality on Mr, Ickes’ services. The new oil assignment for Seee retary Ickes, plus the meeting with the labor leaders today, seemed te

There was no doubt that Me,

The fate of the present labor sece

{

ATTICA MAN WINS CITATION BY NAVY

The navy announced today in Washington that Capt. Henry M. Mullinix of Attica, Ind., has been commended for outstanding service in organizing and directing convoy protection methods. He was one of four men commended by. letter by Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox. The others were Rear Admiral James L. Kouffmar, amisburg, O.; Capt. Stuart H. Ingersoll, Alexandria, Va., and

is causing too many crack-ups, or maybe two of the 30 caliber guns should be replaced by 50s and certain changes are suggested. - Until the change can be made in the production line proper, which may take several weeks, each airplane is flown to a modification center where the change is made before the plane is flown to the front.”

NAZIS DOOM 23 BELGIANS LONDON, Dec. 3 (U. P.).—Belgian sources here said today that 23 Belgians were sentenced to death by a German court-martial at Bruges, for espionage. Eight were

NEW YORK, Dec. 3 (U. P).— American planes still on the secret list are enough to “make the angels gasp,” Maj, Nathanial F. Silsbee declared yesterday in an address before the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Praising the quality and quantity of American plane production, which he said exceeded 50,000 aircraft a year, Silsbee declared that the ratio of enemy planes shot down rose from two to one in FebruaryJuly, 1942, to eight to one in August and September.

Germany erred by freezing the designs of some of its planes to insure quantitative superiority in the battle of Britain. It was then unable, he pointed out, to make quickly the changes required by superior British fire power. In the United States, he said, this problem is being handled in part by “modification centers” set up all over the country to capitalize on irfformation . sent back from the fighting fronts without interfering with production lines, “For example,” he said, “word comes back from Egypt that the

add up to only one definite, overs all fact as regards the manpower situation—that it still was undep study. For several weeks Mr. Roose= velt has said that the completed program would be announced soom. The failure of Mr. Ickes to accep the post may delay the final date.

ing the b:ifleship Indiana several months ago are being used 'y a jeweler to make a pendant for Mrs. Schricker #11d a watch charm for her father, the governor. , , . Corp. Paul Sparks, the former public schools psychologist, reports at Ft. Washington, Md., tomorrow [or three months’ officer training. He's been statio:¢d nine months at Jefferson Barracks, Mo., giving adn) nistrative tests. , , . Bob Harrison, formerly with (ae local schools’ offices but now with the office of wa information, came home from Washington this we: = and is at St. Vincent's for an exploratory abdominal operation. , ., , Mrs. Loretta Miller, secretary to the :chools’ research director, is recuperating at home following an appendectomy. . . . Dick Collins, former in the sporting goods business and who

THE RUMOR that draft boards quietly are ignoring men over 40—just not taking them without making any announcement—is so much bologna, reports Col. Robinson Hitchcock, the Indiana draft chief.

Some of the boards, says Col. Hitchcock, may be giving extra consideration to men over 40 who have dependents, but there’s been no change in rules. Males up to 45 are still subject to the draft. , . . It looks like the next item to go on the nation-wide salvage program is electric light bulbs. Several local groups, including a couple of Legion posts, employees of the Diamond Chain plant and the light company, are saving them already, salvaging the brass bases. It's estimated there’s a pound of brass in 186 small or medium

URGES ‘HUMAN’ WORLD NEW YORK, Dec. 3 (U, P.)== A post-war world order based om “human rights,” rather than “the rights of property, privilege and poe sition,” was advocated by W. Ls

base bulbs. Mackenzie King, prime minister of

more recent'y has operated the Northway drive-in eating place on E. 10th st. is a brand new inductee.

‘Washington

WASHIN (TON, Dec. 3.—Americans will find much to think about in the long-awaited report of Sir William Beveridge, which is the result of a prolonged study undertaken at the request of the British government. This report is concerned with the problems of Britain and with means of improving conditions of life there. The British have their problems and we have ours. spects they are similar, in others totally different. But one thing democracies have in common — a need to improve continuously the adjustment of conditions that arise out of the impact of the swift-moving industrial age. As we have seen, you can go from boom to bust overnight—from private yachts to selling apples. The New Deal ‘wasn't the first administration to try to make readjustments. The Wilson administration made some, as in establishing the federal reserve system. Throdore Roosevelt made some. Even Hiding helped negotiate the eight-hour day to replace fie 12-hour day in the steel industry.

What T. R. Had to Go Through

THEODORE ROOSEVELT made a successful fight to obtain fc¢deral inspection of meat packing houses. You have to read Mark Sullivan's ever-fascinating history of ''Our Times” to see that T. R. was fought as bitterly over meat inspection as F. D. R., was fought in trving to break up holding-company abuses. There ar people, of course, who think it is dangerous socializi for the government to operate the post offices, but everybody else accepts federal meat inspeciion as 1 necessary sanitary regulation to protect public healt, Yet, T. 1i. got it through in the face of charges that he wa: trampling state rights, butting into private busine: i, going into socialism and paternalism, and in fac! against all the same old bogeys that are

WASHINGTON, Wednesday.—There is .a little community service bulletin, No. 128, which tells the story of a Scrgt. Loque of the U. S. army. A Puerto Rican and : resident of New York City, he fell on hard times, but finally came through successfully } through his decision to serve his country. I think it would give you a lift to read this story and to add to it a magazine article about “Phyllis.”

I have spoken about “Phyllis,” one of our bombers, which I saw in Great Britain. I knew that her crew had told the story of her exploits, so when I came across this story the other day, I was much interested in reading it. It certainly is a stirring tale and I don’t wonder that the men love the plane. [ also enjoyed reading another article, “The Corveiie on Convoy Duty.” It seemed more real to me since I examined one in Londonderry. : little ships do dang work

ie Fol

They're also saving electric fuses, for the|Capt. Frederick W, Penroyer Jr.

He stressed the necessity for keep-

In some re-.

same purpose.

By Raymond Clapper

dusted off and paraded every time a change of any kind is proposed * The last election registered a reaction against various New Deal activities, and some think the country has declared an open season to wipe the whole New Deal off the statute books.

A Reaction Back to Harding?

IN SOME RESPECTS the New Deal has been raw and careless in administering its responsibilities, although even here you have models like the TVA, which was one of the most bitterly attacked changes. If the critics want to use the election as leverage to improve administration, the effect will be all to the good. In addition the administration has been slow to force elimination of featherbed practices by labor, which once had a share-the-work purpose but which now only waste manpower and impede war production. The slow burn on that kind of thing would be all to the good. But there are also some who are thinking that the way is now open for a complete reaction back to Harding. Some Republicans are figuring that they can slip any good-natured stooge into the White House as they did in 1920, and elect a rubber-stamp congress. Back-room work is going on for Governor Bricker of Ohio, who has been picked by some to be the Harding of 1944, They are afraid even to take a chance on Dewey. Some interests in Britain no doubt hope to bring about a reaction there. But the Beveridge report and all the other discussion that is going on represents a determination to make England a better place to live after the war. Busy as the people of England are with the war, they find time to discuss these questions. Capt. Oliver Lyttleton, minister of production and a British industrialist, says in discussing these questions that the essence of democracy after the war should be “a balance between the organizing power of the state and the driving power of the free individual.” That puts it into as neat a Package as I have seen.

-

~

By Eleanor Roosevelt

many a merchantman from the enemy lurking under the water. On Monday afternoon I received for the White House some very lovely china plates. The makers have used American artists to decorate them and the set has on it the picture chosen as the winner of one of the treasury department's advertisements. It shows Mount Vernon with a big American flag draped over one part of the background and is very colorful. Yesterday I lunched with the Women’s National Press club and had tea with the American Women’s Newspaper club. Both asked mie to talk about my trip to Great Britain. Since many of the people present belonged to my press conference and had several opportunities to question me on everything in which they were interested, I felt I was “carrying coal to Newcastle.” Nevertheless, ohe of the reasons why I went to Great Britain was the hope of bringing back to this country a better picture of what has happened there. I have no idea of copying what they do, but I hope we shall use anything from their experience which

East Orange, N. J.

ing production fluid and said that!

landing gear on a certain bomber

American Aluminum Industry Shows

By CHARLES T. LUCEY Times Special Writer THE CONCEPT of aluminum as just something that went into pots and pans, and turned up regularly in antitrust-suit headlines, ended for America in 1939 when the wings of the Luftwaffe flashed over Poland in the early

September sun. From that day on it was the stuff with which wars are won. More than three years later America is rolling out aluminum in quantities unknown before in the century since a Dane named Hans - Christian Oersted discovered how to separate the silvery white particles from the earth. It's being done despite some fumbling of the metals problems in Washington and elsewhere in the early days of the war, and some very bad guessing on the nation’s wartime aluminum needs. Today, at Alcoa in the Tennessee hills, one of the biggest continuous aluminum strip mills in the world is pressing red-hot ingots into sheets for airplanes at a rate 50 times faster than it was done in other days. In Kentucky men roll out aluminum on machines set down on bare earth in great factories

‘built so fast there was no time

for floors. ” ” ”

Put Daring to Work AMERICAN INDUSTRY has put its daring and know-how to work here to meet, each day a little more successfully, this basic war supply problem. The tight control of the industry that was held for so long by a single concern, the Aluminum Co. of America has passed away. War has brought others into the field, supplying sizable quantities of vitally needed metal for America’s. goal of 185,000 war planes this year and next. Men have learned’ how to process low-grade bauxite—the basic ore from which aluminum is obtained —on a vast commercial scale. They have decreased this country’s dependence on high-grade bauxite from Dutch Guiana and elsewhere, at a time when German submarines are knifing at American commerce wherever they can find it. Many American cargo vessels bound north with bauxite have gone to the bottom of the Caribbean, The aluminum problem hasn't been “solved”—it isn’t that easy. Production, heading into more

will still be short of needs, and there will be little or none for civilian use.

To that supply will be added perhaps 200,000,000 pounds from Canadian sources, and some hundreds of millions of pounds of aluminum scrap — altogether about three billion pounds. In new, primary aluminum the nation is producing at seven or eight times the rate it was capable of when Germany smashed at Poland. » » n

BUT IT ISN'T alone for airplanes that every pound of this vast supply will be used. It goes into war ships in huge quantities —into berths and lockers, lighting fixtures and chairs, structural shapes, doors, fittings of all kinds. Then there are cooking utensils for army and navy, pistons for jeeps, command cars, tanks, trucks, tank destroyers and other mobile units. There are pontoon boats and portable trestles, searchlight housings and bases, shell parts and outboard motors. And beyond these direct uses there must be aluminum equipment on which to make nylon for parachutes and rayon for the linings of soldiers’ tunics. All over the land, new aluminum facilities are coming into production every few weeks, mostly under direction of the Aluminum Co. and the Reynolds Metal Co. Alcoa put $250,000,000

of its own funds into expansion and is operating government-fi-nanced plants costing hundreds of millions more. Reynolds Metal is a sort of upstart of the industry. Its president, Richard Samuel Reynolds, marched in boldly where others feared to tread. Two years ago he was making aluminum-foil wrappers for cigarets, but because he realized early that 80 to 90 per cent of a bomber’s weight is aluminum and that this is increasingly a “light metals war,” his mills today are rolling out strong alloy parts and plates for airplanes. » ” "

Gets Federal Help

MR. REYNOLDS went to the government for backing. He hocked his plants for $43,000,000 to finance construction of a new aluminum empire, which began with taking aluminum out of the ground and finished delivering finished parts to airplane companies, When the Japs bombed Hickam field, Mr. Reynolds was at his new plant in Alabama. He telephoned the army scheduling unit at Wright field, Dayton, to expect . 5,000,000 more sheets for January, 1942, As Reynolds men tell the story, an army officer shouted back,

Shivering WPB

Staff Casts

Jealous Eyes on OPA Heat

WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 (U. P.).— You can get hot with OPA some days and cool off with WPB on others. A while back it developed that temperatures at the office of price administration headquarters occasionally got up mn the 80's, forcing OPA employees to open windows to. the wintry blast. Now it appears that some 500 or 600 employees of the WPB’s reports control section, housed in the Standard Oil building here, have been shivering in a temperature of 50 degrees, 15 below the maximum level fixed by OPA for homes heated by .fuel oil. OPA explained in its case that the building—one of many “temporaries” in crowded Washington—is draughty and that, anyway, heating

there is by coal, not fuel oil. The Standard Oil building, how-, ar

according to D, J. Larson, assistant chief of the reports control section, who said that on Monday “it was 50 fahrenheit.” D. M. Jones, building superintendent, insisted “it was 75”—10 degrees above the OPA ceiling. In any event, employees were sent home Monday morning on the ground that the building was too cold for efficient work. Investigation disclosed there had been some trouble with the oil furnace, starting last Friday. The elevator boy said yesterday he had “been cold so long I'm getting used to it.” Mrs. W. C. Kircher, junior clerk, wore her fur coat at the desk. Under it she had a woolen dress and sweater. Harriett Strehlow, secretary, found that “yeu can’t work when you're stamping your feet to. keep warm stuffing your hands down in

executed at once.

It Is Equal to

“What? Is this the little Reynolds company?” “No,” Reynolds came back, “this is the big Reynolds company.” Mr. Reynolds is supposed to have told government officials, when they said nobody could build plants in the time in which he promised aluminum production, that “We’ll make aluminum in circus tents if we have to.” Alcoa engineers have put the same ingenuity into the task of turning out the light, gleaming metal in quantities that would rebuild every railroad car in America every four months. A huge steam-drive turbogenerator which was to have furnished electric power for one of Alcoa's new ‘Arkansas plants was.grabbed by the army for installation at a faraway outpost, just before Alcoa was ready for it. It was one of those high-priority crossfires which have occurred often in this war where scarce equipment is needed desperately in several places at once.

# ” 2

Devise Novel Plan

BUT NATURAL gas was available there, and Alcoa engineers found where they could get gas engines to drive generators. They bought. engines to drive the generators—a revolutionary thing in aluminum making, but typical of the drive of industry to supply America’s fighting men with tools

of war.

Alcoa has followed a standardized pattern wherever possible to speed aluminum plant construction. It built 72 buildings from the same shop drawings—actually a sort of production line in plant construction. Alcoa has found it cheaper and faster to expand existing plants, and to build new plants near old ones. In this way the best use could be made of experienced personnel in developing new organizations. It decided to standardize such huge items as cranes, purchasing 175 of the same span and capacity from one manufacturer. For the crane maker, it meant 50 per cent more efficiency that if his shop was full of varying sizes of cranes. Building aiuminum plants and getting them operating is complex and difficult, because the processing from bauxite to finished prod-. uct involves many stages. The bauxite must be crushed and washed until it is a fine powder, ready for mixing with hot caustie solutians in : Jakge eae tanks.

Canada, last night.

War Task

form pure aluminum hydroxide ji

in the form of fine crystals.

” » » HYDROGEN and oxygen are’ still combined with the aluminum, and to free the aluminum from these elements requires huge ine vestments in power dams, electrie generating plants and electrie furnaces. It took scientists decades to find the best ways to do it. It still takes 18,000 pounds of raw materials to produce one ton of aluminum, And huge mills for forging and pressing must come after this. /

In the fabricating that comes

. after ingots are produced, the alue

minum industry has contributed mightily to reducing airplane construction time. In the Douglas DC-3 there were 32 forged parts, but today its army counterpart has 116—intri=cate pieces formed under heat to eliminate riveting and welding and machining that would take time in the plane factory. All the worries haven't gone out of the task of finding enough alue minum for America’s vast air and sea, fleets. In some months raw aluminum production will oute run fabrication capacity, and there will be times when fabricate ing mill§ are slowed for lack of aluminum. There will be a cone tinued fight against gaps in the program. But from one of the most une satisfactory elements in all wap production, aluminum has bee come, say war production officials one of the most encouraging of the lot.

HOLD EVERYTHING