Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 29 December 1942 — Page 13

{4 they've even had

brown shoes.

TUESDAY, DEC. 29, 1942

The

, Hoosier Vagabond

| ORAN, Algeria (by Wireless).—Yesterday /I survived a tour of 150 miles in a jeep. | After 150 miles in a jeep it takes you 24 hours to stop vibrating. At the hospitals they tell me

tough and proud of myself. We made a grand tour of American canips. I went along with a couple of security officers, whose: job it is to set up and supervise security detachments in each camp. By security is meant keeping silent about military secrets, and watching for snakes in the grass such as axis sympathizers and agents. The" security officers have a terrible job because they say Americans simply aren't security-minded—we won't

keep our mouths shut, and we insist on trusting ,

everybody. They say the French practice better security ‘in peacetime than we ‘do in wartime.

Keeping Up the Social Standing

WE STOPPED AT the first airport and I ran into some of my fighter-pilot friends that I wrote about from northern Ireland. One of them had an arm in a cast. I immediately

* visualized a good thriller column, but it turned out

he had merely fallen off the wing of his plane and broken his arm, the unromantic cur. Then we stopped at an anti-aircraft gun set in a hole in the ground, and talked to Sergt. John Muir of Chicago. He said that if those Spitfires flying about 2000 fee, overhead were enemy planes they would be dead ducks. Then we stopped at a chateau way out in the country and had lunch with a couple of generals.

soldiers down in bed after riding all day in a jeep. So I feel pretty

By Ernie Pyle

I have lunch with some general at least once a week

to keep up my social standing and my dignity. One

can’t always be seen with privates, you know. Afterwards we hit a big tent hospital, just being

down on the same boat with us. They're all crazy

about living out under canvas. Katie says she has

been washing her feet in her steel helmet, and it turns out her feet are bigger than her head.

The Major Remembers 1914-18

* WE MADE QUICK stops at a supply depot full

of railroad rails and at an engineer company that is building some roads. Finally we would sit up at Sidi Belad Bes, home of the famous Foreign Legion. Somehow or other we got acquainted with a Major Fuzeau of the Foreign Legion and sat with him for an hour at a sidewalk cafe, though the major

any. We spent the first 15 minutes asking the major

such primary questions as how old he was, whether

he was married, how long he had been in the legion, and what his native city was. That exhausted our vocabulary, so we spent Jhe last 45 minutes complimenting each other for our hospitality, extending hands across the sea, touching our hearts, and recalling wonderful Franco-American incidents of the last war. The reason I know we were doing this is that the major kept saying, “Quatorze dix huit,” which I happen to know means “fourteen-eighteen,” and those of course were the war years. We just assumed from his gestures that he was telling us brotherlylove incidents. The major actually was about the most hospitable person I've ever met. We're going back another day, and he's going to show us all over the place. 3

Inside Indianapolis By Lowell Nussbaum

HAL DENMAN, whose orchestra played for the swanky formal Christmas party of the Dramatic club at the I. A. C. Saturday night, arrived at the club, attired in tails, and discovered he was wearing There wasn’t time to go back after black ones, so he solved the problem by wearing his black overshoes over the tan shoes. Hardly anybody noticed it, either. Seen at the I. A. C. yesterday: Joe Copps, the Speedway publicist, and

John Thompson, another of Steve -

Hannagan's bright young men, John used to report for The Times. Back in the days of the Stoll kidnaping. Remember? . . . Marilyn Sampson, the 80-pound secretary to Bill Evans at the school beard offices, is changing bosses next week. She goes to the I. U. medical center as secretary to Dr. John D. VanNuys, medical director of the center. . . . Among the army men home for the holidays were Lieut. Jerry Sheridan (Harrisburg, Pa.) - and Sergt. Harry R. Morrison Jr. (Chanute field). Both former staffers of The Times.

« Pupils Buy 36 Jeeps

* INDIANAPOLIS’ public school pupils provided the army with 36 jeeps (or their equivalent) during November. They didn’t exactly. buy any jeeps, but they did buy $35,298 worth of war savings stamps—at the rate of $1857 worth each school day. And each jeep costs’ something like $960. Figure it out for yourself. « «+. A reader writes in to tell us that those Christmas carols floating over the downtown section Christmas “ eve at 5:30 were coming from WIRE’s loud speakers atop the Claypool. The carols were sung by WIRE's “Farmhands, » “with Dessa Byrd at the organ. . ... Mrs. Grace M. Tanner, who's to be Mayor Tyndall's secretarial stenographer, is one of the three women in the world, we're informed, who is a member of the Black Watch association of the famous old British Black Watch regiment—now the Queen's Own regiment. She was made a member while she was in

‘Washington

‘WASHINGTON, Dec. 29—In the coming year American industry probably will produce more war . goods than any nation ever produced before. To do that, some very uneconomical expenditures

< must be made by our government, War industry does

not run just on materials produced in this country. For instance, war industry must have tungsten. We get it in Portugal, Turkey and Spain. Germans are in those places trying to get it, too. The lucky neutrals have’ the belligerents bidding against each other.

Money cost is no object either

to us'or to Germany. You want the material at whatever price. If we pay 10 or 20 times the normal market price, what of it? We have to have mica for radio equipment. We

"were so desperate for it at one time that the air force used its own planes to fly supplies back from India.

That Certainly was not economical, in dollars.

When WPB tells the board of economic warfare it must have 5,000,000 carats of industrial diamonds for stock-pile: purposes, that means the industrial dia-

monds must be obtained, and it means that you can’t

go to South Africa or South America and be choosy about price. You take what you can get at the prices you have to pay.

- Some Politicians May Try to Capitalize

WE ARE TRYING to. obtain natural rubber in

the western hemisphere at prices and in ways that

would normally be too expensive to bother with. But the synthetic production isn’'t.coming along very fast. We won't. be up anywhere near our requirements in 1943.

My Day

WASHINGTON, Monday —Sunday was a very

. + peaceful day for us. The president and I were over-

or to Great Britain, who has come home for a time. One is ordinarily supposed to return home for a holiday, and it would certainly seem a necessary thing to do when one works as hard as this particular ambassador does. Instead of resting, I think Mr, Winant is planning to use much - of his time over here to work on things he just can’t find time to work on in Great Britain. °° In the late afternoon I managed to corral my husband to look at a few Christmas presents and then a few friends came fo supper. We saw the movie called, “Ran~ Harvest,” which is based on James Hilton's book.

charmingly done and everybody seemed to leguipes, | Their gardens produced 3.000.000 bushels of s and ‘responsible

Toronto, serving cigarets to soldiers. P. S. The politicians better be nice to her. The regiment's motto, translated from Latin, is: “No one annoys me with impunity.”

A Very Sad Tale, Indeed THE ELMER R. BROWNS (5538 Broadway) have a Tiger-Persian cat that’s always underfoot and follows Mrs. Brown wherever she goes around the house. About a week ago she went down into the basement, where the maid was doing the family laundry. Wishing to be in the thick of things, the cat jumped up on the washing machine and playfully switched his tail. A moment later, he let out a series of blood chilling yowls as the rubber rollers began “wringing

out” his tail. Somehow, Mrs. Brown or the maid (we haven't learned which) managed to shut off the wringer and release the cat’s tail. Upon which the cat took the stairway in two bounds. It’s down at Dr. C. F. Stout’s veterinary hospital now, doing very nicely, indeed. The veterinarian says X-Rays revealed the tail wasn’t broken, although badly bent. He adds that the cat will be as good as new is a few days, albeit a bitsy warier.

Around the Town

PVT. BOB WILLIAMSON, former ad salesman for the Shelbyville Democrat, was inducted at Ft. Har‘rison recently for VOC training. He and his wife made arrangements Christmas eve to spend :Christmas day together, but they didn’t get the details straight. As a result, she traveled from Shelbyville to the fort to meet him, while he went to Shelbyville. They spent the day looking for each other—unsuccessfully. . Mrs. John K. Ruckelshaus is a little sore at Santa Claus because the old gent failed to bring a new roof for the Ruckelshaus’ garage. The old one leaks and makes it hard to start the car—wet wires. . . . The Scientech club news letter reports seeing a sign.nort of 23d on Meridian: “Share your car—Drive twice as far’—and, believe it or not, it’s signed by the Marion county rationing board. Must be some mistake.

By Raymond Clapper

So regardless of cost we are financing expeditions into the wild rubber jungles of Brazil and the growing of the cryptostegia plant in Haiti and other places. The rubber may cost us a dollar a pound but it is the quickest source of natural rubber. We need rubber, regardless of what it costs. After the war is over investigating committees probably will go back over.the deals that are being made now by the board of economic warfare. Some politicians looking for a cheap way to get votes will be telling people how reckless the government was with public money during the war. That was tried after the last war but Charles G. Dawes, later vice president, exposed the game by making the point that when you are trying to win a war you have no time to hunt for flyspecks.

Remember This After the War

JESSE JONES has found to his prolonged embarrassment that it was a mistake to haggle over the price of rubber instead of getting the rubber here before the Japs cut off our sources. Would we care now what price Jones had paid to get more rubber? You can’t be economical in running a war. War is the most wasteful enterprise of the human species. The only test of war is, not how cheaply you can run it, but whether you win it. Any cost is cheap if you win. So when you look back on industry’s miracle of war production, and look ahead to the greater volume that is still to come, just tuck away somewhere back in your mind the thought that it could not have been done without government extravagance, without a wild shelling out of hard American dollars, on plants and on scarce materials that had to be bought in all corners of the world. You won't get rid of the evils of war unless you get rid of war,

By Eleanor Roosevelt)

day, beginning with an interview with a lady who has not been able to find her particular niche for useful work, though she has been in Washington for some time. At 11 o'clock, Miss Margaret Hickey, chairman of the women’s advisory committee of the war manpower commission, came to my press eonference to tell the ladies of the press about the progress of the work of her committee. A few minutes after 12 o'clock, Miss Gertrude Warren, of the department of agriculture, brought over some of her executives in charge of 4-H club work, to try to find out whether anything I had observed in Great Britain could be of use to them. She left some information on the achievements of the 4-H # clubs throughout the country, which I want to pass along. 3 These youngsters bought war bonds and stamps to the value of $6,000,000 and were instrumental in selling to others $2,600,000 worth. They produced 11, 000,000 pounds of soy beans, peanuts and other

set up. There I ran onto Lieut. Dick Alter and Nurse Katie Bastadiho, both of New York, who came

spoke no English and we no French, at least hardly

| Judge Robbins’ court.

Just my head is loose.

not water, but thick oil.

It doesn’t occur to me to swim away from ‘the ship until I see others striking out. 'Thén I realize how difficult it is. The oil soaks into my clothes weighting them and 1 think underwater demons are tugging at me, trying to drag me down. The airless litebelt, absorbing oil too, tightens and tautens the preserver cords around my neck. I say to myself: “I'm going to choke to death, I'm going to choke to death.” Next to con- = 3 fined places, all . : my life, I've : heen afpaid of choking to death. This is the first moment of fear. I have a ring on my left hand which my wife bought for me PB on the Ponte #534 Vecchio in Flo- Cecil Brown rence when we were on our honeymoon. It is rather loose on my finger. With oil on my hands, I'm afraid I will lose it. I clench my fist so that it won't slip off. I start swimming away with the left hand clenched. With my right hand I make one stroke, tug at the cord around my neck

make another stroke to get away from the ship. That ring helps save my life. Something like it must have helped save the lives of hundreds of men. Your mind fastens itself on silly, unimportant matters, absorbing your thoughts and stifling the natural instinct of ‘man to panic in the face of death,

» ” 2

1 SEE A life preserver 18 inches long and four inches thick. It is like a long sausage and I tuck

KNOX JUDGESHIP STILL IN DOUBT

Problem Is Entangled in A Mass of Legal Complications. .

Knox county's dilemma over who should be its circuit court judge, Republican ‘James Allen Jones or Democrat Ralph A. Seal, became entangled in a web of legal complications today. This issue appeared to narrow to one of court jurisdiction. Offices of Governor Henry F. Schricker and Secretary of State Rue Alexander indicated ‘that final decision in the case hinges ‘on which court has jurisdiction over validity of a restraining order—superior court or the circuit court. Alexander broadened the - controversy today when he repudiated his signature affixed to the governor's. official commission naming Seal as judge. Schricker said he issued the commission in accordance with prescribed law when special Recount Judge A. Dale Eby informed him a recount showed Seal the “winner by 18 votes. Alexander, however, said he had signed his name and affixed the state seal unaware that the election contest and recount had been taken to the courts. “If the governor knew of this fact, he did not at that time so advise me,” Alexander said in a letter to Knox county officials.

Appointed Judge Eby

The dispute, before snowballing into legal complexities, began when: 1. Seal brought suit to contest an original canvassing board report that named Jones of Bicknell as the new circuit judge, elected by 55 rotes. 9. Circuit court appointed Judge Eby as special recount judge. 3. The recount board found Seal the winner by 18 votes. 4. Republicans filed suit and obtained a temporary restraining order from Republican Herman M. Robbins, judge of Knox superior court. 5. The board certified the recount results namihg Seal as winner. to Governor Schricker, who signed Seal’s commission, cancelling automatically an earlier commission he had signed for Jones. - 6. Republicans sued to make the restraining order permanent. 7. Seals attorneys filed a petition for a change of venue from

Judge Eby said Judge Robbins had no right to issue the order, because, he said, circuit -court is of equal jurisdiction * with superior

in a futile effort to loosen it, then |

court. Alexander said he did, not

L 7

XX—Into the China Sea

I SEEM TO BE GLUED TO the hull of the Repulse. I tur ing the last-minute evacuation of the ship. slides down the hull, pauses for a moment at the bulge, stands up and makes a beautiful swan dive. vanizes me, and 1 stand up in the porthole and jump, the camera wildly, swinging from its strap around my neck. The jump is about 20 feet. The water is warm; it is My first action is to look at my stop watch. It is smashed at 12:35, one hour and 20 minutes after the first Japanese bomb came through 12,000 feet to crash into the catapult deck of the Repulse.

n it from side to side, watchSomeone

That gal-

it to me. A small piece of wood appears inviting and I take that too. A barrel comes near, but I reject that because the oil prevents me getting a grip on it. All around me men are swimming, men with blood streaking down their oil-covered faces.

The oil burns in my eyes as though someone .is jabbing hot pokers into the eyes. That oil in the eyes is the worst thing, I've swallowed a bit of oil already, and it's beginning to sicken me. Fifty feet from the ship, hardly swimming at all now, I see the bow of the Repulse swing straight into the air like a church steepie. Its red under plates stand out as stark and as gruesome as, the blood on the faces of the men around me. Then the tug and draw of the suction of 32,000 tons of steel sliding to the bottom hits me. Something powerful, almost irresistible, snaps at my feet. It feels as though someone were trying to pull my legs out by the hip sockets. But I am more fortunate than some others. They are closer to the ship. They are sucked back. When the Repulse goes down it sends over a huge wave, a wave of oil. That makes me terribly sick at the stomach. As I swim in the water, other men are hanging on to pieces of “wood, floating lifebelts and debris. Four or five times I see blood and oil-covered hands loosen their grip and slide beneath the water.

” ”

Faces Undistinguishable

I DO NOT SEE Gallagher anywhere. If is difficult to recognize anyone through the oil on his face. About 15 yards away I see Someone struggling and fighting in the water. I finally recognize Sub-Lieut. Page. There are two men near by. The injured Page is struggling to get out of the two lifebelts wrapped around him, the

Shivering and with hands plunged deep. in the pockets of his furlined “G. 1.” mackinaw, Warrant Officer Clyde Young was colder in Indianapolis during last week’s zero wave than he had been in Kodiak Alaska, where he’s been stationed for the past: nine months.

Preparing to return to the Alaskan outpost after spending a 15-day

their home, 3239 N. Illinois st. Young said excessive humidity here probably provoked his preference for the Alaskan climate. , He said things had “quieted down” at Kodiak, but told of native resentment towards opening of the new Alaskan highway. “Old-timers are afraid the tourist nflux after the war will soften up pr frontier,” he pointed out. “They went there for life in the raw and they want it to stay that way.” Movies and gambling provide the chief divertisement in Kodiak, Young declared. Liquor is rare and cigarets and beer aren’t easy to get, according to the warrant officer. Eskimo women, about the only kind extant in that northern clime, are taboo for U. S. soldiers by army orders, he added.

“The suction of 32,000 were trying to pull my les closer to the ship . . . s»

ut by the hip sockets. led back!”

long of steel sliding to the bottom hits me . . . it seems as though some one But I am more fortunate than others . » . they are

belts he had on when 2 tossed overboard. “I'm hurt,” Page is cryin: hurt. I'm no good any mor take the belts.”

The men can't swim, bu is insisting and sobbing, } © out of the belts. “Take the: 1 ‘no good any more.” Page prevails on the tw to accept the belts... The; saved, and Sub-Lieut. Pag underneath the water.

Someone calls to me, “foc all right, war corresponde: “Yes,” I say, opening my to say it, and I take aboarc oil. I decide if anyone as any more questions I will w: /* my hand, if I have the streng 1. I am terribly tired. A small table, about thre square floats by. I grab bh! of one leg, but it is too slipper» and I know I will lose it. I sc: rable up on top and lay there for = m0ment. And then I wate! the Prince of Wales go down, hig, dark thing sliding into no 1ngness. : . Now the sea seems reall der serted, with men and mess loating on the surface.

was

Im . You

ling I'm

men are ;1ps

you 1outh

ore me

feet

Colder in Indianapolis Than Alaska Local Soldier Sci/s

furlough with his wife, Maxine, at 3

Warrant Officer Clyde You :

Biggest let-down in morale when a weekly supply of cig for troops failed to arrive, ¥ said. The Indianapolis man said ¢ ing as usual” continues as the jor.industry in Kodiak, despite 1 ing submarines.

PLEADS GUILTY IN FAILURE TO REGISTER

CHARLESTON, W. Va. Dec. 29 (U. P.).—George Randolph, 40, who failed to register for selective service on registration day because it was raining and “there wasn’t any use getting wet,” pleaded guilty today to the violation and was held for action by a federal grand jury. “When I looked out on registration day last February and -saw it was raining I just decided there wasn’t any use getting wet,” Randolph ‘told federal agents who ar-

‘rested him. “So I just stayed home.”

SUPERMAN

USED RADIO TUBE: 70 BE TURNED N

WASHINGTON, Dec. 29 (U. E. Radio owners will be require turn in their old tubes at the of purchasing new ones next ; the war production board nounced today. WPB said the rule probably go into effect early in 1943 anc being announced now to enable sons who might object to this ; cedure to’ enter their dissents. Government officials said the tem of turning in old tubes. for ones will permit the salvaging tube bases and will control number of tubes distributed.

ne ar, n-

ill as

ae,

O~-

As I swim I hear one man yell, “An electric eel just shocked me!” There are no sharks that I can see, &lthough this area of the South China sea is usually filled with sharks.

» u

Rests on Table Top

THERE is a Carley float about three-quarters of a mile away, and a destroyer about two miles distant. I have no intention of trying to reach them. I only want to rest on top of the small table. The conviction that this is my finish is still strong within me. Besides, I want to conserve my strength, want jealously to guard it during the hours before death comes. I say to myself, “I've gotta remember all this; I gotta remember all this.” And the next minute, “What the hell’s the use? I will never be able to report this story.” It’s so easy fo close your eyes, shut out this sight, and fiercely forget what the eyes already have seen. Strangely enough, I don't think of my wife, my family, or my

childhood. I constantly glance around to see if I recognize any. of ‘the men, and I am especially . watching for Gallagher. I don’t see him but I do recognize two or three officers and we smile wanly at each other. As I lie on. the table I pull off my heavy cotton khaki socks. They are soaked and weighted by oil, as heavy as iron. I let the soaked socks slip into the water and i! five pounds lighter. As the | warmth of the South «China sea slushes between my toes I think, “That feels wonderful to my =) : The effort, little as it is, ex= hausts me. The drag of the camera around my heck and the: choking py the life-preserver cord convince me I ought to do something about them. But the water= and-oil-soaked cord of the preserver is knotted and I can’t unfasten it. As for the camera, I feel I'd rather drown than throw ‘it away. ; TOMORROW — Aboard a life raft, crowded with the living and dead, with Jap bombers overhead.

TRAITOR TELLS

Nazis Broadcast From Berlin.

By UNITED PRESS Fred W. Kaltenbageh, the Iowaborn American traitor who is one of the ace radio propagandists of the Nazis, appealed to American housewives on the Berlin radio last night to “stock up on all canned

ands on.”

: fan other foods you can lay your

Kaltenbach, who lives where there pas rationing and ersatz long beforest the war started, professed to be “shocked” by the situation in the United States. He addressed “Mrs. Smith, American housewife,” as follow: “Before Roosevelt's war is over, | your cute ‘little left hand will be sufficient to count all the goods that will be :unrationed. So you had better be wise; stock up in larder and cellar before it is too late.” Kaltenbach’s propaganda was recorded by United’ Press in New York.

THREATEN RAILWAY STRIKE IN BRITAIN

LONDON, Dec. 29 (U. P.). — The -— new year may’ see a railroad strike in Britain, with soldiers operating the trains, W. P. Allen, secretary of the Associated Society of Locomen tive Engineers and Firemen, warned today. .Allen said there would be an emergency meeting Wednesday to pro-

test the , Tecent wage increase granted. engineers, firemen and engine cleaners. - The rise, in most cases ranging from 3 to 5 cents a

| day, was’ called insufficient by the

trainmen. A strike would be illegal,

I. 5. T0 HOARD

lowa-Born Announcer for

HOLD EVERYTHING

POLLY DIMWIT

“Pll bet those are some of the ‘military circles’ I've read about!”

WAAGS LEAVE FOR TRAINING CLASSES

Eight Indianapolis women have been ordered to report to: Ft. Des Moines, Iowa, for training in the WAAC. % They are Frances G. Banker}, 939 W. 31st: Helen F. Bucy, 1105 N. Winfield; Iva K. Crough, 2611%2 W. Michigan; Rose W. Gay, 481. N. Emerson; Dorothy Marie ‘Michalowski, 1523 N. Capitol: Kathryn Miller, 251 N. Delaware; M 3 Lynn Mitchell, 39 E. 9th, and Velma, R. White, 2955 N. Talbot. Others who will report are Paul ine E. Brown, Speedway; ‘Martha M. Bunting, Noblesville, and "Wil lefta PF. Garr, Clermont.

KINGSBURY WINS. wo LA PORTE, Dec. "29 (U. Todd and Brown, Inc. ‘operators the Kingsbury ordnance plant, to day announced that \ women - workers at the war would receive an @ army. s award at ceremonies. on Ji