Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 12 December 1942 — Page 9
Hoosier Vagabond
WIT: THE AMERICAN FORCES IN ALGERIA, (by wire ess) ~—Norman Harrington is a sergeant, but he doesn it even WMther to wear his stripes. His only interest bi doing for the army what he was doing &s a cii{lian—superb photography. Last spring he spent $200 traveling between Maryland and Washington to pave his way into the right branch of the army. He had a dozen people write letters of recommendation. He had no ambition to join the army and become a truck driver. His traveling money was well spent. The army finally enlisted him in the signal corps’ photographic section—a round peg in a round hole. He was even excused from the redundancy of attending the army's photographic school and being taught stuff he already knew. Today his teammats, Pvt. Ned Modica, says he is the best news‘reel man in the army. / During their second night on African soil, the two
photograohers slept in another country schoolhouse— -
this tim¢ on desks. They actually only slept about three hotirs out of the first 60. At dawn a colonel rushed up and asked Harrington if he wznted to ride along on a. reconnoitering trip that Capt. Paul Gale was making in a: jeep. Harrington grabbed his cameras and jumped in.
An Hour in ¢ Town Not Captured!
PVT. HAROLD ARON was driving. They drove seciveral miles, passing troops on the way, and finally came to a small town and parked the jeep. ‘While Capt. Gale went about his business, Harring‘ton got out his equipment and took pictures of the local pe:ple and the shell-marked walls. Everybody was nice. Things seemed normal. - They were about ready to leave when some Amerfean troops came marching in. Only then did they realize taey had unwittingly spent a nice hour in a
Inside Indianapolis By Lowell Nussbaum
PROJ'ILE OF THE WEEK—William Henderson Remy, jresident of the new board of safety, Bible school {sachey, red-hot Republican, rabid fisherman and, as former prosecutor, the man who prosecuted D.C. § henson, former Governor Ed Jackson, former . Mayor Duvall, George V. Coffin, Gene Alger, John Thomas Shaw, the McNamara case and a lot of others. Bill Remy is a quiet, reserved, yet friendly man, with a onetrack mind and bulldog tenacity. A good trial lawyer, he thinks fast on his feet. He's a polished speaker. Bill soon will be 50—in fact, next Friday is his birthday. He’s about 5 feet 10, weighs probably 155. His face is thin and angular, his ears and nose are prominent, his eyes .are hazel and he, parts his graying brown hair in the middle. He 17alks rapidly, and usually with his head down. In his breoccupation, ‘he passes up his friends on the street ‘without seeing them. His father, the former appellaie cour; judge, tells of walking into a cafeteria, seeing ‘3ill at a table, and sitting opposite him at the same titble for 15 minutes without being recognized. Bill, deep in thought, never did see his dad; just got up and walked out when he was through eating.
Golly, He Even Eats ’Em
BON N IN COLUMBUS, he was reared there, attended! Manual, DePauw, I. U, and was graduated from lhdiana law school in 1915. He served with the iniantry in world war I. He put in five years
Mr. Remy
‘as prosecutor, filling out one year of his predecessor's
term and being elected to two terms of his own. He
“made lis first race, in 1924, on an anti-Klan plat- - form, ‘which took quite a bit of nerve back in those
days. And he was elected, too.’ Back in 1938, he was the Republican _nominee for juvenile court judge. Bill} ‘Remy’s one big hobby is fishing, with bass as his particu! ar favorites. In fact, his friends have nicknamed him “Basser Bill.” He week-ends at Lake Wawasee each year from June 15 to Oct. 15, and fishes his head off. He likes to take a guest or two
‘ashington
WASHINGTON, Dec. 12—We have had military
Jnen’s class at the Central Avenue M. E. church. He
town that hadn't yet been captured! They started back in their jeep to a command post several miles to the rear. Capt. Gale was sitting beside the driver, Labaron. Sergt. Harrington was in, the back seat. The top was down, and the wind-| shield folded flat and covered—for a .windshield can create a glare that makes a perfect target for snipers. ! It’s funny the things you learn in war. For in-| stance, the soldiers were issued sun glasses before coming ashore, but had to abandon. them because the glasses caught the sun and made nice targets. The three drove on along the highway, among vineyards, under a warm African sun. quiet. The Algerian phase of the war seemed about over. Suddenly Labaron, for no apparent reason, fell over his steering wheel, and the jeep swerved. Blood splashed down over his uniform. He never uttered a sound. Unheard and unseen, a sniper’s bullet had taken him just over the right eye. He died instantly.
Une Steers, Other Presses Throtlle
HARRINGTON REACHED OVER the body and grabbed the wheel. Capt. Gale got his foot around the dead driver's leg. and shoved the throttle to the floor. Two more shots zipped past but missed. The jeep roared on down the road and out of danger, with one man steering and another man at the throttle. When they got back, the colonel who had asked Harringion if he wanted to make the trip saw what had happened, and remarked to Ned Modica, “It’s getting pretty hot, isn’t it?” There was no reply, for just at that moment all the soldiers jumped up and started to retreat. It was on an order from the commander executing a change in tactics, but Ned didn’t know that at the time. He said to a man leaning against him, “Let’s get the hell out of here,” and whirled about to start running. And as he turned the man fell heavily to the ground—dead. Modice never knew who it was that died while leaning against him.
Everything |
By Ernie Pyle,
VI—Dead Jerries Differ
IN THE REMARKABLE brightness of the desert moon, Johnson's face is shining with eagerness again. ' His eyes are starry and his wide mouth is half parted ‘in that shy smile of his. His head is cocked slightly to one side and he sits there on his heels in the sand like a terrier
about to leap for a ball.
“This trench is better than getting it in a city,” I
remark. Johnson looks across at
“I'd like to be back in England.”
explosions fade away. “You
out here. don’t mind it, either. It's just so bloody quiet out here.” “Well, it isn’t quiet tonight.” “Oh, we get these raids about every night. You know what I mean. No real action. My wife, now, she writes me how worried
she is about me, to be very careful, and how she prays for
with him, drag the poor wretches out of bed at 3 a. m. or so—sometimes even in the rain—and make them sit out on the lake and fish all day long.
Chores? Get Away From My Door!
HE KNOWS all the fishing lore, the signs, etc., and even claims he can tell what the fishing weather's going to be by the way cows stand on a hillside. He can clean a bass in a minute, and enjoys doing it— even cleans them for friends. And, unlike many fisherman, he enjoys eating fish, Bill is a pretty good three-cushion billiard player, used to play quite often at the Columbia club. On the radio, he enjoys such comedy programs as Fibber McGee, Fred Allen and Jack Benny. He doesn’t care much for movies, but once in a while will go to a comedy. He can’t be bothered with any handyman chores around the house. He has great powers of concentration, can read with radio going full tilt and a houseful of youngsters, and not be bothered. When he has a problem to work out, he gets out his lap board and a deck of cards, which he always keeps handy, and plays solitaire until the problem is worked out. He occasionally plays bridge, but only to be accommodating.
His Desk Is a Sight
HIS CLOTHING tastes are simple. clothing, and dark red neckties. His hats never look new very long. His food tastes, likewise, are simple. He never overeats, and doesn’t care for sweets. Bill reads detective stories for mental relaxation. History and religion are hobbies with him, and he has ‘a nice library of books on religion. He's a member of the First Baptist church, but teaches a
happens to be the son-in-law of Bishop Edwin Holt Hughes. His big desk at ‘the office always is stacked from two to three feet high with papers and books. They overflow onto chairs. Whenever he wants something, he dives into the pile and comes up triumphantly with it. ' And about the only time he gets good and mad is when someone (maybe his secretary) gets a fit of tidiness and wants to clean up that desk. He won’t stand for that.
By Raymond Clapper
He likes gray
me every night, and all that. That seems, well, sort of silly, now doesn’t it? All we're about is muckin’ around in the desert. It’s them " back home that Cecil Brown take the dirty end.” He pauses then, and in that slight hiatus in the anti-aircraft fire and the bomb blasts, all the horrors of the heavens seem to open up. We both jerk down into the ditch, faces in the sand and my ears feel as though someone had slapped them with the flat side of a paddle. The trench seems to rock like a lifeboat in a tossing sea and there is a lowsucking swish of wind rushing past. And then it is gone, and my ears ache a little, and I began to untie the knots in my stomach, and the muscles in my arms and legs suddenly seem a little tired. ” ” o
A Lucky Hit
“LUCKY, that one was,” Johnson says, spitting out sand. “They hit a dump of land mines.” I'd seen such a dump this afternoon. A pile of square, black affairs to be buried alongside the roads or across sand trails to send invading tanks or transport cars sky high. Without penitence or pause, the bombs and ack-ack resume. “Never satisfied,” I mutter. “They got something. They can
I don’t mind the desert.
“No bricks on your head.”
me sharply. He waits until five know, sir, it’s strange being
go home now.” Johnson pays no attention to my complaint. “I don’t like to say this, sir, you being a war correspondent.” “Oh, go ahead, Johnson. All I'm doing up here is getting sand in my teeth. Besides, if it’s good they’ll censor it.” - “Well, it’s like this. Compared to the people at home, a man doesn’t feel he’s doing his duty out here.” “Why, sure you are, man. If you didn’t hang on to this desert the Germans would be here and you'd be back near Suez, or beyond.” “Yes, but I might be back in England, too. That's where the ‘action js, sir.”
» # 2
Wise to Booby Traps
“A DEAD JERRY is a dead Jerry, Johnson, wherever you shoot him.” “No, sir, it isn’t the same. Not the same thing shooting them out here and shooting them back in England.”
In the moonlight, at the bottom of a sand trench, Johnson's eyes are eager, his meuth is parted in a curious, shy smile. The bombs and ack-ack are clattering: across the western desert, but Johnson is far away, back home in Britain. : Throughout the desert there are many harmless-looking opportunities for sudden death. No soldier who sees a water canteen or fountain pen picks it up. They are usually booby traps planted by the Italians or Germans. Driving through the desert we came to an abandoned whippet tank. A shovel leaned against the side. Capt. Fielding told Johnson to jump out and salvage the shovel. The driver went over to it, stood a foot away. “It might be a booby, sir,” he called back. We kept a safe distance. Fielding snorted disparagingly rand got out. But he, too, kept his hand away from the shovel. Then he climbed back into the “truck. “There you are,”
he said, “that
I don’t like if, but I
“Driving through the desert, we came to an abandoned whippet tank.”
perfectly good shovel is rusting away just because dozens of people, coming along before we did,
think it is a booby. Touch the shovel and it flies off in your face.” The British are not exactly in the "back row on these booby traps, and they have created various forms of explosive surprises. One of the creators is known as the mad sapper. With the zeal of a fanatic, he tinkers all day on mischievous mechanisms. I asked him to explain a few of his newest surprises. He gave me the same answer he gives everyone in his stentorian voice: “Do not disturb me! I am the sword of Gideon and of the Lord!” He won’t give any of his secrets away. He allows the Italians and
Germans to find out about them —just a mite too late to make use of the information.
» # ”
Lonesome Is the Word
LONESOME is the British word for the desert. Occasionally you see a long-legged, sand-colored desert snipe and a few fleetfooted gazelles. Once I saw a dog—a yellowish beast—running across the desert, loping like a wolf. I thought, “Now where the hell does that dog find anything to eat in this forsaken country?” Then the horrible answer suddenly occurred to me and I felt as though someone had punched me in the stomach. The desert is many things to many ‘men, but to all men the
desert is primarily a place of flies. They are the most adhesive crea=tures in the world. ‘A desert fly, the same breed that swarms over Cairo and Tripoli, prefers to die under the hand rather than give up his clinging bite.
A man shows his desert expe= rience by the skill with which he drinks his tea, draws the enamel cup away from his mouth and sets it down with his hand covering the top before a single Stuka fly has dived inside the cup. The most amazing speed in this maneuver I saw performed by Maj. Gen. W, H. E. Gott, in command of the support group of the armored division. (Gott was killed later when a plane he was in was shot down by the Germans.) Capt. Fielding and I drove for three miles across the sand to find his tiny headquarters set down beside a solitary palm tree. This ‘was euphemistically khown as an oasis. A half dozen officers were sitting by a table and Maj. Gen. Gott invited us to have a “bit of tea to cool you off, you know.” I must admit I was more interested in watching the general keep -the flies out of his tea than
I was in the summary of the
situation he gave.
NEXT: The litter of death on Egypt's sands; close-up of a desert air-fighter.
(Copyright, 1942, by Random Ho Inc. distributed by United Feature Syn: dicate, Inc.)
JAPAN PROBES
AXIS FAILURES!
General Returns to Tokyo
Georgia, Tennessee Tempers
ATLANTA, Ga., Dec. 12 (U. P.). —No one had produced a shooting iron today but southern tempers in Georgia and Tennessee were get-
Flare in Boundary Dispute
tion and it is up to Georgia. to accommodate Tennessee and its
“hot-headed governor.”
RHOADS FAGING 2-10 YEAR TERM
Pleads Guilty to Charges
New Gun Fires
From Plane Tail
By Science Service WASHINGTON, Dec. 12—A newly patented invention promises to make it as dangerous to
i ERR 1 Rae
. But the big war workers in the Detroit area do not. in several instances, favor freezing of manpower there as a solution of their difficulties. They are all : having trouble getting enough workers. Ford has Secret Meeting. only about half as many as he needs at Willow Run, yet C. E. Sorenson, vice president of Ford, By NAT 4, BAREOWS x > : e Soessy ¢ elise yor. can souipel a man to work at a|COPYTENG, (HE BF ThE ANY News, Bac. In Detroit a few days ago several other executives LONDON, Dec. 12—Carrying ex-
Lanier, in a letter to the Georgia get behind single-seater fighting planes as it is to get top close behind an old-time army mule. It is a device whereby a machine gun (or a pair) may be mounted in the tail of the plane, with
arrangements for changing the
With Findings of of Illegal Sales of
Used Tools.
WASHINGTON, Dec. 12 (U. P.) — Robert B. Rhoads of Indianapolis, former chief of the used tool section of the war production board,
ting hotter by the minute in a|jegislative committee appointed to boundary dispute which involves| geek an adjustment of the dispute, threats and counter-threats of ac-|said the state should take whattual warfare. ever means were necessary to reThe dispute, dormant since 1818, claim the land which went to Teninvolves a large area of eastern nessee ‘allegedly because of a surTennessee. land which Georgians veyor's error. He said Tennessee say belongs legally to them. If| was collecting taxes on the land
conscr ption in this country before but this is the first t:me the government has undertaken to prevent men f iom leaving civilian jobs without permission. It i a delicate business, and Manpower Chairman McNutt will want to assign his most competent, most tactful and wisest assistants to this work. It is loaded with dynamite and can-
tensive reports concerning the pres-
not be safely handled by the kind of government bureau field workers who have sometimes gone out to deal with industrial relations. The first big experiment comes in the Detroit area. Thirty-four kinds of war work are covered, affecting some 600,000 workers. The government cannot uirectly conipel a man to stay on a job, but it can keep him there (by forbidding another employer to hire him. That 's the method being tried out. Provision is made for appeal by either employers or employees. It is not intended that the freezing shall be so compite as to prevent change of job for any reason whatever, But the burden of obtaining a release to
- take other employment is placed on the employee.
Instincts and Tradition Offended
NOTHING LIKE THIS has been seen in the Unitel States since the days when the newspapers were full of advertisements for the return of runaway ilaves. The’ practice so completely offends all Amer can instincts and tradition that it can only be justified if urgent war necessity leaves no other course, Probably some degree of pressure is necessary to check violent migrations of labor now because manpower reserves are thin and need to be evenly spread.
My Day
BOSTON, Mass., Friday—On Wednesday evening, before leaving Washington; I .attended the concert giver! by the Don Cossack chorus. Unfortunately, I co ld only stay half an hour, since I had to be at the jroadenstiie station early to rehearse my broadcast. However, I enjoyed the concert very much while I was there. Afterwards, I took the midnight train to New York.
I had breakfast at the apartment and. continued by train to Westbrook, Conn. There I had time to lunch with my friends Miss Lape and Miss Read before proceeding to Fall River, Mass, where I spoke in the evening for the Russian relief fund. Before leaving Washington, I did manage to wrap up quite a
numaer of Christinas presents. ‘This year I am mak-
ing 4t.a point. to give children, in whom I am interested, 10-cent- war savings stamps books with a
cartel ‘number of stamps already in them, so they will) Inspired : to complete them. To their Sass,
RBASSRIM nin oi
took the same, view. C. E. Wilson of General Motors says his concern has lost more than 32,000 men to the armed services, but he isn't ready for compulsory freezing of employees.
Key Is Co-operation, Not Compulsion YET THE JUDGMENT of the government that it is necessary to take corftrol must override that of individuals outside who have only a partial view. But when large employers of war labor such as those in
Detroit question the need of control in their areas, that should suggest the utmost care and flexibility in administering the controls which are now being put into effect. Most of the complaint about rationing and restrictions comes down to irritation over arbitrary and inflexible administration of restrictions. The principle that you must ration where shortages exist will not be seriously challenged. Nor will it be questioned that competing military and industrial demands on our manpower are so heavy now that there must be careful allocation by the government, treating the whole manpdiver as one reservoir. Those concerned with it should never for one minute forget that they are engaged in something that goes deeply against the grain in America, that it is to be tolerated only as a necessity of war, and that real compliance will be obtained by co-operation rather than by compulsion.
By Eleanor Roosevelt
in’ many cases, I am giving bonds, where I can think of nothing really useful they might wamt.
In a way, it is hard to take the usual kind of interest in Christmas celebrations, but this is part of the way of life for which our boys are fighting and I think we should carry it on. . In many ‘cases, metaphorically speaking, they give us the opportunity to join hands with those we love throughout the world. We know that those who have been with us at similar celebrations will be thinking of us and will probably join us in thought when we rise to toast the absent members of our families as well as absent friends. : This is a busy day. I started with two guests at breakfast, then the group working for Russian relief in Boston arranged for two and one-half hours of varied activities. In the afternoon, I go to Radcliffe to speak to the students, and later attend the dinner at which I shall be taken into Phi Beta I am very deeply honored to be admitted into this society of the learned and I only wish that I thought my academic achievements would really allow me
ent status of axis war activities, Gen. Bansai, Japanese military attache to Berlin, now is hurriedly returning to Tokyo via Turkey and Soviet Russia. His trip followed a suddenly organized secret conference at the Japanese embassy in Berlin of Japanese military observers and agents from Rome, Stockholm, Budapest, Lisbon and Madrid. Anxiety about the axis’ possibilities of holding out against the united nations was discussed long and seriously at this conference three days ago, according to reliable information reaching London from Stockholm, . The secret meeting was arranged when the Japanese high command summoned Bansai and his staff of 10 assistants back to Tokyo for first-hand details of how Germany and Italy stand in the light of recent developments. Gen. Viscount Oshima, Japanese ambassador to Germany, attended the conference.
Question Rommel Rout
Specifically, the Japanese observers were asked for information bearing upon the reason for Gen. Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s collapse in ¥gypt and upon the stubborn refusal of any occupied country willingly to co-operate with the axis,
A stockholm dispatch t6 the Lon-|
don Daily Telegraph under the headline, “Japan Anxious About Axis,” also indicates that the Japanese discussed the inability of the German U-boats and luftwaffe to prevent the Anglo-American invasion of North Africa; the phenomenon of Russia's repeated offensives despite Hitler's repeated reassurances that the Red army has no striking power, and civilian morale of Germany and Italy under heavily concentrated royal air force and American bomber attacks.
It is known that Bansai’s depar-|
ture from Germany was delayed by Soviet hesitancy to grant him a visa buf when it was granted, immediate orders were given through
to make an intellectual contribution oil of my audience this evening. iin YER
‘Europe ordering his subordinates to report to Berlin, wy
*
they were able to prosecute their| hich had an assessed valuation of
claims successfully, they would take possession of the entire town of Copperhill, Tenn., and a good part of Chattanooga. “Tennessee, through its governor, Prentice Cooper, invites a fight and we will gladly, accommodate them,” said State nator Wilmer Lanier of Augusta, who re-opened the dispute by urging that a bill of annexation be passed by. the legislature. Lanier said he talked by telephone to Cooper and that the governor had told him Tennessee “will fight to hell and breakfast” to keep the boundary as it is. In view of this, Lanier said, no further efforts should be made diplomatically to settle the situa-
almost $100,000,000. In Nashville, Cooper said,
we want to maintain it.”
The Tennessee governor said he attached little importance to the fears expressed by Georgia's Rep. John T. Dorsey of Marietta who said “unless this is stopped we’ll wake up some day and find Atlanta
is in Tennessee.”
HOOSIER HEADS BUREAU WASHINGTON, Dec. 12 (U. P.).
—The civil aeronautics board yes-| terday announced the appointment of Jesse W. Langford, a native of Martinsville, Ind., as director of its safety bureau to succeed Jerome
Lederer, resigned.
“We believe in our present boundary and
FUNNY BUSINESS
% z |” z
ly ;
e . .
J =
“He loses so much sleep walking the floor at night with: Junior that when he dozes at the office he starts carrying his secretary
aroungl®
was free on $10,000 bail today after pleading guilty to two charges brought against him as the result of alleged violations of the war powers act. He entered his guilty plea in federal court yesterday when he was arraigned on charges of conspiracy in connection with illegal sales of machine tools and making false claims on the government for expenses incurred in connection with the sales. Rhoads, who joined WPB in Me uary and was relieved of his post Aug. 4, faces a maximum penalty of two years in prison and $10,000 fine on the conspiracy charge and 10 years in prison and $10,000 fine on the other,
Charge Profit of $15,000 Each , Indicted with Rhoads were Ralph L. Glaser, formerly his assistant in the used tool section; Louis E. Emerman, Chicago machine tool dealer, and Clarence J. and Frank L. O’Brien Jr, of the O’Brien Machinery Co. of Philadelphia. . The justice department charged
that Rhoads and Glaser, at a profit of $15,000 each, gave an option to the O’Briens on sale of a quantity of tools held by Emerman. Both were accused of turning in ac-
counts for traveling expenses in|
connection with the deal. Emerman, it was charged, retained $150,000 worth of tools in a Rhode Island warehouse with a view to obtaining higher than ceiling prices for them. He disposed of them illegally through Rhoads and Glaser, the indictment said, and the O’Briens netted more than $37,000 on a sale of about half of the tools.
2 BANANAS SELL FOR $32 |
BATH, England, Dec. 12 (U. PJ.
—Two bananas were the most valued item put on the block yester-, day at an auction to buy sports| equipment for British froops. They sold for eight pounds sterling—approximately $32.
vertical angle of fire under control of the pilot, who adjusts his aim by means of a rear-view mirror, This setup, reminiscent of some of the fancy shooting we used to see in Buffalo Bill's wild west show, was developed by John F. Haberlin of Seattle, who has assigned rights in his patent to the Boeing Aircraft. It it comes into general use it may revolutionize air combat, for at present the favorite maneuver of every sin-gle-seater fighter is to attempt to get on his opponent's tail, where he can shoot without being shot at,
TAXI RULES MODIFIED WASHINGTON, Dec. 12 (U. P.. —The office of defense transporta-
tion ruled yesterday that taxicabs
may deliver emergency telegrams when other means of delivery are not ‘available. Previously, such deliveries were banned under an
ODT order.
HOLD EVERYTHING -
PR. 1942 BY NEA SERV AACN.
“That? Oh, that's for ed in the WAACK