Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 16 December 1942 — Page 15

VEDNESDAY, DEC. 16, 1942

yr ’ . WITH THE AMERICAN FORCES IN ALGERIA. — A trip by troop transport in convoy is a remarkable experience. I came to Africa that way. We weren't . permitted fo tell about it at the time, for security rea- ; sons, But enough time has now passed that-it can be written about without danger, Convoys are of three types, you might say—the very slow ones of freighters carrying only supplies; the medium-fast troop convoys which run with extremely heavy naval escort, and the small convoys of swift ocean liners which carry vast numbers of troops and depend for safety mainly on their great speed. Ours was the second type. We were fairly fast; we carried an enormous number of troops, and . we had a heavy escort, although no matter how much escort you have, it never seems enough to please you. "We had both American and British ships, but our escort was all British.

I still can’t tell you what route we took or how " long we were at sea, but I can say that if we had . sailed the same distance due west, we could have been in New York instead of North Africa.

Across London Through Blackout

I GOT THE WORD at noon one day that we were to leave London that night. I'd sent my laundry off that morning and there was nc hope of getting it back, so I had to rush out and buy extra socks and . underwear. The army picked up my bedroll at 2 p. m. to take it somewhere for its mystic convoy labelings. I packed everything else in a canvas bag and my army musette bag. Four friends came and had a last dinner with me. It was night time, I took a taxi to a meeting place

Inside Indianapolis By Lowell Nussbaum

BARBARA BATMAN, 2-year-old daughter of Howard Batman, public counselor of the public service commission, was down in the basement watching her -mother doing some laundry. Unnoticed by her mother, Barbara toddled upstairs. There, she gathered together all her dresses, her coat, shoes, bedclothing and everything else she could lay her hands on and put them in the bathtub. After that, she turned on the water, and was busy doing her own laundry when her mother came upstairs. Mrs. Batman had to finish the job. . « « A man who looked remarkably like Gideon W. Blain, dignified attorney and member of the new board of works, was seen Monday evening, riding a girl's bicycle Tate down the sidewalk on Central just ‘south of 34th st. He was weaving a bit uncertainly and had the appearance of being determined to ride the darned thing even if it killed him,

Airline Uniforms

THE UNIFORMS worn by American Airlines’ local agents greatly resemble those of naval officers, and some confusing and amusing situations result. Jack Sharkweather, one of the agents out at municipal airport, reports that when he walks down the street, members of the WAVES usually snap to a salute, then catch themselves and embarrassedly ease their hands down. . . . Several days ago, some small boys “followed him, speculating on what his rank might be. One youngster said he thought Jack was a “junior cadet.” , . , Over at the Red Cross offices there is a typewriter donated by an Indianapolis woman for use there. It’s an Adler, made in Frankfort, Germany. When Virgil Sheppard took off the .cover yesterday

Washington

WASHINGTON, Dec. 16.—Some labor people have picked a very poor time to make trouble. The new congress, which comes in just after New Year's, is certain to be more anti-union-than the old congress. ‘Labor has had some scares in the present . congress but labor is going to be far less secure from now on—less secure than it has been at any time since Mr. Roosevelt became president. Congress is to be less under White House influence than before. Violent anti-labor southern Democrats have new allies in the Republicans, who have come back in droves from the Midwest farm section, which is now a bitter antilabor section. Not only that, but this is not 1933. Now there is plenty of work at good wages. The political attitude during the depression was quite different from what it is today. Then a 40-hour week was a. desirable spread-the-work arrangement. Now it only gets in the way. The war hits everybody and nobody cares to make an exception for labor. The whole climate here, ~ which in 1933 was warm toward labor legislation, is now chilled.

‘Overplayed the Public's Sympathy

YOU WOULD THINK that labor people would see this and act accordingly. The smarter ones do. Philip Murray and William Green are busy trying to keep good public relations with unity-for-victory speeches. “They know that it is important for labor to hold

Hoosier Vagabond

designated by the army. Other correspondents were there. An army car picked us up, and drove clear across London through the blackout to a little-used suburban station. : Just after daylight our train pulled up alongside a huge ship. Our party was assigned to two cabins, four men in each one. We all thought we would sail shortly after getting aboard. But we had forgotten that the ship had to be loaded first. Actually we didn’t sail for 48 hours. All during that time one long troop train after another, day and night, pulled alongside and unloaded its human cargo, Time dragged on. Impatience was useless.

The Tale of the Disappearing Dogs

WE WOULD STAND AT the rails and watch the troops marching aboard. They came on silently, most of them. Now and then one would catch sight of somebody at the rail he knew, and there would be a shout. They carried odd things aboard for men who were going off to war. Some had books in their hands, some carried violin or banjo cases.’ One soldier led a big black dog. And one, I found later, carried two little puppies aboard beneath his shirt. Like the Spartan boy in the story, he was almost scratched to death. He had paid $32 for the pups, and hé treasured them. The British (it was a British ship) are finicky about allowing dogs on troop transports. The officers ordered all dogs turned in. They said they'd be sent ashore, and promised that good homes would be found for them. But somehow the dogs disappeared. They were never found by the officers. And the morning we filed off the boat in North Africa and began our long march to our quarters, a black dog and two little puppies from England marched with us up the strange African road.

to show it to a visitor, he found a typewritten note in it: “Adolf Schickelgruber is the lowest down heel of all time.” The note, needless to say, was typed in the good old U. S. A.

The Rising Sun?

ONE OF OUR READERS who was a little embar- |’

rassed about having his name used called to say that he wished Dick Miller wouldn’t turn on that big yellow light while the national anthem is being played at the start of hockey games in the coliseum. The caller said the light reminds him too much of the rising sun. Could be the setting sun, couldn't it? Seems like Dick told us once, though, that it was the harvest moon. , .. A man who seemed angry enough to bite a tenpenny nail in two called the city desk to raise hell- about the way the taxicabs “burn up gasoline hauling shoppers around” and keep so busy they haven't time to haul people to the hospital, to see sick relatives. He seemed quite put out about it, too. Can't blame him much.

On the School Front

THIS IS A BIG week in the schools. Programs, pageants and luncheons are being held in various schools preparatory to the Christmas vacation which starts Friday. . . . The art and home economics departments are planning their annual Christmas tea

party from 2 to 5 tomorrow. They usually serve tea| .

and coffee—take your choice. This time it will be tea, no doubt. . . . And Sergt. A, C. Magenheimer and Bill Evans, the schools’ safety director, have issued a bulletin urging the 70,000 children who will be on vacation for two weeks not to skate in unprotected places, not to slide out into the street en their sleds, and to avoid fire hazards in their homes during the holiday season. It’s good advice. . .. Sign on the door of the Acme Novelty Co. store, 2 W. Market st.: “Will be closed on the day of Hitler's funeral.”

By Raymond Clapper

steady now, and that it is in danger of having its ears pinned back unless it does hold steady. When the railroad brotherhoods demand a 30 per cent increase it jars the whole structure of wage stabilization. Some of the engineers and firemen earn

more than some of their bankers now. Members in other unions begin pressing their officials for similar demands. 3 When the independent union in New York stops delivery of newspapers, it is making a dramatic display of its nuisance value and adding to the weight of public disapproval that falls on all organized labor. Labor people ought to be smart enough to see that they are in bad now. They ought to see that they have overplayed on the public’s sympathy and have got the public against them now instead of with them as in the early Roosevelt days.

FDR Knows When Storm Is Brewing

DID YOU SEE how quickly President Roosevelt killed off WPA after he saw the last election returns? He is an old sailor and knows a storm before it hits. He is trimming sail because he knows the weather is blowing up. Labor leaders would be smart to note what the sedSoned skipper does. I think reactionary Republicans are reading too much into the last elections. I don’t believe people in this country are ready to go back to Harding. But they don’t see that labor needs so much featherbedding as it did when times were hard. Labor legislation won't be repealed because of speeches by the officers of the National Association of Manufacturers nearly as quickly as it will be

By Ernie Pyle

ago from India. The general outlined the of Malaya:

drown the engines. I don’t

morale of the Japs. first-class troops.

point of this jungle fighting. We feel we can outsmart the Jap patrols time and again. We went

through the jungle for 11 miles carrying mortars without being on 3 seen by our umpires once.” Driving northward to the Thai frontier the road knifed its way through thick jungles, then began to climb the hills near the border at Kroh. This is incredible country. You can’t see four feet into the jungle. It is a tangled mass of bamboo, palms, ferns and gum trees rising straight up to amazing heights. Crisscrossing this mass are aerial creepers hanging down from the trees and extending like a series of ropes hanging from the yard-arm of a ship. It was frightening even to look at it. You felt the sound of the car motor was something of a sacrilege. Throughout this entire stretch I neither saw nor heard any birds.

Cecil Brown

tude and solemnity. ” ”

Know This Territory

IN A DOWNPOUR we came to a utility parked along the road, in it were Col. Moorehead and three other officers. All, strangely enough, were dressed in civilian clothes, and they had come down to lead us to the Kroh camp just two miles from the Thai frontier. “We have the advantage,” Col. Moorehead said, “of knowing all this territory well. That's a very great advantage. We are sure the

”

. Japs don’t know it because it was

only mapped three months ago,

By ROSEMARY REDDING Those women you see up front in the City hospital ambulances these days aren’t going along just for the ride. They're learning the business. Yes, we're going to have women ambulance drivers. There is a dozen or more of them in training now—and -there “prob-~ ably will be more. Why so many? Well, they're volunteers, housewives and mothers, most of ‘em. They aren’t going to replace the five men at the hospital who drive those fire-red: “emergency wagons,” although in case of a manpower shortage or an.emergency they will be qualified to do that. They. are, however, going to man a City hospital ambulance. It’s the one at the Municipal airport. Up to now, it has not been regularly manned, equipped and ready to go. These women will do that job.

Serve 24 Hours Daily

And it isn't an adventure either. These women, members of the civillian defense drivers’ corps, have pledged to be on duty out at the airport 24 hours a day. They will work in shifts and those on night duty will sleep right at the airport.

“We have rather made a’

You seemed all alone in that quie-

IX—Jungle Battleground

(Editor's Note: The author was one of a group of correspondents making a tour of British defenses in Malaya, just south of the Thai border.)

THURSDAY, AUG. 28— At: the headquarters of the Eleventh Indian Brigade, south of the Thai border, we were met by Brig. Gen. Murray-Lyon, a very handsome, gray-haired, compact officer, who came here 10 months

British plan for the defense

“Bren gun carriers can negotiate through the rubber estates for our defense in the rubber. so that if we don’t drown the Japanese in the tanks, we

We have ditches

think much of this vaunted

They have never been up against

and none of these maps has fallen into Japanese hands as yet.” Hunched over, I followed behind the corporal along the meager, cluttered, soggy path tunneled through the jungle bordering the frontier between Malaya and Thailand, territory only recently mapped. It is twilight in here. An inextricable mass and jumble of palms, gum trees, bamboo, teak and intertwined vines and creepers shut out the midday sun and deny the sky itself. Every now and then the corporal, grunting and muttering softly swings his sharp-edged parang to slice off a creeper vine yearning for a neck to choke. At every step our feet sink above the ankles into rotted branches and the muck of the jungle floor. Col. Moorehead is too far ahead. Now we can no longer even hear

him thrashing his way over fallen -

trees or slapping away at the aerial vines blocking his path. ” # o

Hodge-Podge of Nation

DANK AND STEAMING—those are the cliches to describe the jungle. In this hodge-podge of nature gone slightly mad, where the British and Japanese will one day fight, it is dank and steaming, all right—nearly asphyxiating. Hardly a whisper of air, and there’s the musty smell of wet places and the piercing scents of

decaying matter, animal and veg--

etable, The sweat pours off our faces and streams down the middle of our backs as though we're in a downpour. It is the frightening feeling of inability fo find the next breath that’s most alarming in here. That, and the hidden things poised to leap and bite, or claw and gore. Ten minutes of this for an amateur is like running two miles. I call to the corporal and we sit on a fallen, slanting tree hemmed in by leaves and tree-trunks and

The British were confident they could defend Malaya, where the Japanese invaders had to transverse an incredible country of jungle, a tangled mass of bamboo, palms, ferns and gum trees, rising straight up to amazing heights. The general pointed out that Bren gun carriers, shown above, could negotiate through

the rubber estates for the defense

utter silence. Even the birds have deserted us. This is. where claustrophobia takes on a new, neck-crawling, spine - itching meaning. Trees, leaves and creepers seem to be closing in. You can only see a few feet on all sides. The range of vision seems to be narrowing and constantly it gets darker. You strain ears to listen for a python slithering across the earth or cracking a twig. Your eyes roll in all directions, overhead, left and right, and you twist your head to look behind. os s 2 A LAND OF WICKED beauty, this Malaya, orchids in profusion on all sides. This is a country of 900 species of orchids. But it is also a land of tigers, panthers, wildcats, elephants and boar. Three or four species of gibbon lurk in these jungles; this is the hide-and-seek ground of Brok and Kra monkeys. There are cobra here, hamadryad and the banded adders. One bite and the war is over. Sitting in the jungle undergrowth in a semi-darkness, your imagination leaps from one sudden attack by nature to another, and your lungs scramble around to find enough air to draw in. Here man-made war as it is known on the front pages and in the news commentaries lacks reality and, for some, lacks even danger. Here along the base of the

" strategical triangle that has Singa-

pore for its apex, practice and potential war is not a matter of

of Malayan rubber.

tanks and dive bombers but of buzzing mosquitoes, malaria, tigers offering ripped flesh in their claws and cobras with death in their fangs. Highlanders from Scotland, Indians from the Rajput, Australians from “Down Under” and Englishmen from Manchester think not only of the Japs. They think as much of the menaces of nature. We sit there, I gulping in air, both of us sweeping the sweat off our faces with one hand and yanking fat, voracious ants off our legs with the other. “Can’t stay here very long,” the corporal says. “These keringahs ‘will pick us up and take us home.” #" n »

Just Jungle Trouble

HE'S VERY SKILLFUL at snaring two or three of the red ants with one pinch of the fingers. After a while the corporal says: “Well, the colonel will be waiting for us.” The colonel is sitting on the stump of a tree, the only one cut down here, and his- shirt is half ripped off, hanging over Jim queerly. “What happened -to you, Colonel? Run into some Japs?” “Oh, no, just one of the many amenities of the jungle. Watch out for it.” “Watch out for what?” “A palm with a hooked thorn on it. Luckily, it only ripped the shirt. It’s rather bad when it -takes the skin with it.” We are beside a small trench? in a tiny island of Sleating in the

Women Being Trained Here as s Ambulance Drivers

Leonard Cox gives Mrs. Louis Trinz some “pointers.”

They will take on their duties at

around 40 ' auxiliary ambulance

corps chairman, and her co-chair-man, Mrs. Guy E. Morrison, say.

jungle and on the edge of a cliff falling straight down 40 feet to the road—the road into Thailand,

_ It is lighter in. here, about like

late afternoon on a rainy day, cr” ” ”

Japs to Find ‘Honor’

THREE Indian soldiers, Sikhs, are in the trench. Their rifles are ‘leveled at the road through nare row openings in the wall of trees, vines and ferns. The trench could not be spotted three feet away, Camouflage is simple in this country. Does the colonel think he can hold the Japs if they come down from Thailand. “Of course; and there's no doubt of that,” he exclaims. “I don't think much of this vaunted moe rale of the Japs.” “But,” I suggest, “the Japs are fanatical. They consider it a sacred honor to die.” “Well, they'll find all the sacred honor they want in the jungle. We know this country. They don’t, By now, our British and Indian troops are acclimatized. We know how to fight the best kind of guerrilla warfare. “Oh, there's no doubt of it,” the colonel says with an expansive gesture of confidence. “No doubt of it at all. We can outflank the Jap outflankers and knock hell out of them.” . TOMORROW — Invitation to sail on the pride of the British Pacific fleet, the Prince of Wales —or was it the Repulse?

yp, CODVH gH, 1942, by Random House, distributed by United Feature Syne iy Inc.)

WAITS SENTENCE AS DRAFT DODGER GOAGH

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 16 (U. P), —Sergt. George Comroe today awaited sentence on charges of

‘| accepting bribes to show draftees

how to obtain deferments. A jury convicted him after dee liberating 10 minutes. Testimony revealed Camroe had

| taught prospective draftees to act

like alcoholics and psycho-neurotics, He faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison and $10,000 fine,

SCHOOL 45 TO GIVE ANNUAL PROGRAM

William Watson Woolen school 45 will present its annual Christmas program fo the community at 7:43 p.-m. tomorrow in the school audie torium, 2301 Park ave. 4 Esther Mullis will play an ‘organ prelude, and the Junior High School choir will offer a selection of carols. Ruth Bicknell will head the cast of the play, “Why the Chimes Rang,” in which she will be supe ported by Jane Deming, Norman

Rice, Freeman Nuckels, Ann Inman,

through public disgust with labor's conduct, drivers in the city.

This group will rotate in shifts at the airpert but ‘all will®be on call to man ‘ambulances recruited by the civilian defense office in case of an emergency.

the airport as soon as quarters are set up for them there. That will be about the first of the year.

After the dozen or so women have become integrated in the job, they will take on the responsibility of

As plans are shapii'g up now, the women will serve in couples, one to drive and one to serve in place of an interne. They not only will be called on in case of an accident at the airport but for “runs” to any accident in the vicinity.

Robert Kennard, David Schwindler, Donna Jean Ellison, Willa ‘Gene ‘Dennis, Robert Hanna and Julia Hull.

other members are anxious to give their services, despite the turns they must take voluntarily at night work. Before they began their training, a few women: were a little fright-

By Eleanor Roosevelt

My Day

. 'NEW YORK CITY, Tuesday.—Last night, T en joyed very much “The Carnival of Animals,” by Saint-Saens, as played by the Dutchess county philharmonic orchestra, with Maj. John Warner and Mrs. Lytell Hull at the two pianos. It always seems to me ; . like a _ delightful and amusing extravaganza. It seemed strange to be in Poughkeepsie and not to go home, but my cottage is closed for the winter and thé big house is only open when due notice is given. + The train I took to New York City was an hour late in arriving at Poughkeepsie, so I sat in the station for a time and watched the usual come and go of passengers and read a magazine from cover to cover. I found H. W. ITomiinson's article, which deals with our after-war attitude, well worth considering. He fears that we ~ and the British, merely because of having to fight the ‘war, may sink into some of the very attitudes we are trying to wipe out. One paragraph stands out in its emphasis on what

chooses to refashion this earth nearer to the heart's

“Amid the uproar, one meets persons speaking as citizens of the world. ' They express, in what seems to be chaos, their sense of individual responsibility; and certainly without that understénding of civility even a democracy would die. The great city is the city of the best men and women. Its rulers cannot make it great. If the right spirit is not in its tenements, then the city is as dead as Babylon, or deserves to be. And if ever there was a day in the story of humanity when the common man must summon his wit and will to decide which way history shall go, it is.now. All depends on him. Unless that fellow

desire, civilization must perish, The danger is not that he is unworthy and unwilling to choose, but that he has ‘hever understood history to be but the story of himself and from ‘as far back as the day when he shaped flints. History is, in all its lessons, no more than the imperfect reflection of his apprehension of good and evil.” A little further on he says: “We may fairly say of the American and British peoples that they regard war with horror. But horror of war, however, does not preserve peace.” No, only a passion for justice

It all sounds pretty exciting, but the women in training are taking it as a matter of course. And that way literally. For they have had courses in first aid which fit them to step in in an emergency. They will begin additional training in first aid shortly. They have had a course in caring for cars that included the changing of tires, etc. They've driven .all types of trucks at Ft. Harrison. And beginning in January, they will take a course in motor mechanics just to qualify them even more.

Get Actual Experience

So the actual driving of the ambulance is not the hardest part of the training. Right now, they are accompanying Leonard Cox, the city’s No. 1 ambulance driver, on runs from the hospital. This is to acquaint them with procedure. Some already have had an oppor-

and a determination to see iv function the world over

jugiy 10 “lend a Delving band”

training other women in the drivers’ corps of 40 to do the job. So that,

eventually, there will be a corps of |

And how do the women feel about it? Well, Mrs. Louis Rappoport, the!

job but almost to the women they | now feel “sure.”

THREE YANKS KILLED IN ST. JOHNS BLAZE .

announced today,

They were Pvt. Edward B. Ford, Technician 5th Grade Henry L. Kennedy, of Glens Falls, N. Y., and Pvt. Frank. M. :

of Pittston, Pa.;

Yirga, of Mansfield, O.. been

A hs aL

President Has

New Grandson

~'SAN DIEGO, Cal, Dec. 16 (U. P.) .—President Roosevelt has another grandchild. 2 The baby, a girl still unnamed, ‘was born last night to Lieut. (JG) John Roosevelt, youngest son- of the President and Mrs. Roosevelt. Mercy hospital attendants reported the baby and her mother were “getting ‘along excellently.” Mrs. Roosevelt is the former

Anne Lindsay Clark of Nahant, The couple also has a 2-

"WIN WAR RST

CUBAN HEAD URGES

NEW YORE, Dec. 18 (U. P.).—

conferred with President Roosevelt, said last night that the war must be won before post-war reconstruction can be arranged. Gen. Batista addressed a farewell

RAF SERGEANT HANGED

(U. P.).—Royal Air Force Sergeant

| Tom Hutchings, 21, of Peterhoro,

ened about their ability to do the)

President Fulgencio Batista of Cuba, | concluding a week’s official visit to]. the United States, during which he/|,

dinner here given in his honor by| the Cuban Chamber of Commerce. |

ST. ANDREWS, N. B. Dec. 16],

HOLD EVERYTHING