Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 23 February 1943 — Page 11

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TUESDAY, FEB. 23,

1943

SECOND

SECTION

‘ Hoosier Vagabond

THE TUNISIAN FRONT (By Wireless) —Little things come to mean so much in wartime. “At this front I'm the only person I know who .has a can opener, and it’s in constant demand. I have to carry it in my cover-all pocket to Eeep it from being stolen. Somebody swiped my comb the other day. Stealing ceases to be just stealing when something you need badly is taken. I've never stolen anything yet, but I wouldn't put

it past myself under favorable cir-

cumstances. I have a pair of fingernail scissors with me, and one day recently I lent it six times to soldiers who were just passing and asked if I had any nail clippers or scissors. Cold water and cold| weather are hard on soldiers’ hands. Their fingers get hard and crack eround the nails. Night after| night I've lain awake because my fingers had split back from the nail and throbbed with pain,

You Become Practical

OUR TROOPS do manage to look fairly clean, and presentable, even though sanitary facilities are skimpy. The air forces allow their soldiers to grow beards, but the rest of the army doesn’t. Consequently the men have to shave regardless of how inconvenient it may be. You become eminently practical in wartime. A chaplain who recently checked the. pockets of 10 Americans killed in battle said the dominant thing he found was toilet paper. Careless soldiers who ‘were caught without such preparedness have to use ~.20-franc notes. Everything is so scarce you always take anything that’s offered you whether you need it or not. I've

By Ernie Pyle

taken a ‘proffered cigaret while already smoking one. I've drunk wine, which I detest, just because somebody was sharing his bottle. If somebody offered me a bottle of castor oil I'd accept it and hide it away.

Favorite Kitchen Friends

WHEN WE CORRESPONDENTS are on 2 the prowl we eat wherever we happen to be at mealtime. Correspondents are always welcome. We've spent so much time traveling that we know some of the officers in every unit in Tunisia and popping in for a meal once in a while becomes a small reunion. But whether you know the officers or not, you invariably know the mess sergeant.. The old law of self-preser-vation, you know. I personally have two favorite kitchen friends. Both happen to be Pittsburghers. One is Sergt. Pat Donadeo, from Allison Park, a suburb of Pittsburgh. The other is Pfc. Joe Fox, of the Oak Hill section of

: Pittsburgh.

Pat worked 10 years at ‘the Wildwood Golf club. He hopes the job is still there when it’s all over. He is mess sergeant of an armored outfit and he sets a mighty fine tray. We have a special link because just a couple of hours before I showed up at the mess for the first ‘time, Pat had received a letter from his wife commenting on one of these columns (favorably, I might add).

Joe Fox is a table waiter at the headquarters to}

which I retire occasionally to hole up and write, Joe thinks Westbrook Pegler and I are both wonderful. We in turn think Joe is wonderful. Of course Peg never heard of Joe; so I'm casting an affirmative vote for him. Since Joe is 4000 miles away I guess Peg can afford to break his standing rule and like him just a’ little bit, by proxy.

Inside Indianapolis By Lowell Nussbaum

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W. A. MISKIMEN, vice president of Stokely Bros., is so conscious of his responsibility as a C-card holder that he has had some windshield cards printed listing his destination. - When he’s en route from his home in Golden Hills to the office, he displays a card reading: St. Joe and Meridian. If he’s going around the state to visit some of the company’s plants, he displays a card naming the town he’s headed for. It's a big help in filling empty seats with passengers. . . . A reader who asks to be nameless phones to complain that the 1943 license tab on a certain state police car is so placed as to obscure the 1942 number. Can't tell whether it’s 205 or 295, says he. . And an old gripe writes in to tell us to “tell your compositor (printer) that the correct spelling of the weekly magazine Newsweek is to make ‘it all one word, and not two as he has done twice in the last few days.”

Tin Can Worries

WITH THE limited number of cans of food available under the newly announced point system, it’s going to look unpatriotic to have too many processed tin cans in front of your home. It will virtually brand you as a hoarder. And yet Uncle Sam needs every ounce of reclaimed tin he can get, or the number of cans of food available may become even smaller. One of our agents suggests that hoarders using cans from their hoarded supplies go ahead and process the tin cans and, the night before the next scheduled collec-

=~tion, place the cans in front of the home of their

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+ air fighting has been done with Grummans.

least liked neighbor. , . . John Kleinhenz says that instead of the “point system” it ought to be called the “disappoint system.” . , . Harold (Speedy) Ross of Bozell & Jacobs has been confined to his home several days by a severe cold.

Our Military Section

FRED LAHR, specialist 1/c, has been transferred from Kokomo to the navy’s recruiting office at Evansville. He's former advertising manager of the Indiana

Washington

WASHINGTON, Feb. 23.—We were so successful in large mass production of automobiles in this country that we may have been influenced to lean too

heavily in war production on sheer size and on:

gadgets. That, at least, is the view of some pérsons . I talked with the other day around the Grumman aircraft plants on Long Island. Their layout and methods are quite in contrast with Willow Run, to take the opposite extreme. Against the gigantic Willow Run plant, highly mechanized, the Grumman company has several relatively small buildings, not too many gadgets, but it gets out the planes. This company builds navy planes, and much of the Pacific ‘ They

“sproduced several thousand combat planes last year

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and: are exceeding the 1942 rate this year. The management says it is better to get out planes, perhaps in more modest numbers, than to be building plants to get out planes in larger numbers some "time later,

Absenteeism Under 2 Per Cent

THAT IS an argument that has a good deal of importance for Americans, and one that we ought to consider as a matter of long-run efficiency. Questions are being raised as to whether the way to get the biggest production is to build the biggest plant, or whether the way to have the fastest production is to have the most gadgets. That is the trouble at Willow Run. The plant was se big it had to be located out in the country. People can’t ‘live close enough to the plant, so the help problem is staggering. The Grumman people built their plants on Long Island, scattering them around within a few miles

My Day

WASHINGTON, Monday.—Yesterday was a nice,

-~ peaceful day, with guests at luncheon and at supper

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in the evening. After supper, we saw two brief newsreels, including the president's last speech and Mme. " Chiang’s speech in congress.

I did not have space yesterday

fully to tell you how much interested I was in the play “Harriet,” written by Florence and Colin Clements. very remarkable piece of acting in bringing out the charm of Harriet Beecher, and at the same time leaves you in no doubt as to her emotional motivation, When Harriet - Beecher Stowe wrote “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” she evidently had no idea she was stirring other people emotionally

to the point where she, herself, would see her own

son go to war, because he felt she had been a factor in , Jringing about the war. She had no feeling for Lincoln

Helen Hayes does a.

night club, which is the place to which would go if the “XY ot; opi :

Lumbermen’s Mutual Insurance Co. . . . Lieut. Harry Harlan, U. S. N. R,, is home on leave from Norfolk. . Also home for a few days is Lieut. John R. Spicklemire (The Times Photographer) from Ft. Monmouth, N. J., with brand new shoulder bars. He enlisted in the signal corps Feb. 20, 1942, got his commission last Wednesday—just one year later—the hard way. . , . Sergt. Harry Morrison Jr. (Times sports writer) has

"been recuperating at home (3720 N. Pennsylvania)

from an attack of flu—or something. He became ill while on furlough from Chanute field and was granted an extension. . . . Incidentally, while he was 1ll, Harry heard some of the folks on The Times were sending down to Seymour, Ind., to buy war bonds and help Seymour reach its special bond goal of $75,000 to buy a dive bomber in memory of Ensign Robert L. Fleetwood. Harry wanted to help so yesterday he put a dollar bill in an envelope and left the house to mail it. . On the way, he found a dollar bill in the street. So his contribution cost him nothing.

. Fun on the Phone

VIC SEITER, controller of the Gas Co., had some trouble with his phone the other evening. His number is BR-3278. During dinner, he answered two wrong number calls from the same man. When the phone rang again, George Saas, a dinner guest, answered. George has had some experience with phone kibitzers, so he answered by saying: “Union station.” The other party hung up. Next time it rang, George said: *‘Simon’s kosher meat market— and we haven’t any.” That went’ on all evening. Even after the'Seiters had retired, the phone continued ringing. «At 3. p. m: it. was someone calling for a doctor. At 4:30 a. m., it was someone else. Finally, in desperation, Mrs. Seiter took the receiver off the extension phone in her bedroom and placed it under her pillow. At 6:30 a. m. she was awakened by vague

mutterings under the pillow. She placed the receiver

to her ear and said hello. A man’s voice said: “Please hang up, lady. This is the phone company and we've found your trouble.” It seems something had happened to the mechanism at the phone office and any time anyone dialed BR-32, the Seiters phone rang, regardless of what the last two numerals were.

By Raymond Clapper

of each other. The result is that 90 per cent of their labor comes. from the county in which the plants are situated. Only 10 per cent commute to New York—and many thousand workers are employed.. This was a mushroom job, too. Grumman began with 300 workers and the personnel now runs into the tens of thousands. They say their absenteeism is under 2 per cent. I rode around the place with the general manager, L. A. Swirbul. Workmen greet him as “Jake.” He was a marine in the last war, and makes fighters and tropedo planes for marines and navy fliers now.

Top Aces Flying Wildcats

JAKE’S PRIDE is that our top aces are marines who fly his Wildcats—Capt. Joe Foss, the Guadalcanal hero, the all-time American ace with 28 Jap planes; Maj. John L., Smith, with 19, and Capt. Marion Carl, with 17. Jake’ssworkers made the carrier planes that fought at Midway. He went out into the Pacific not long ago to see his stuff in action, to talk to the fliers who were using it, and to bring back the word and suggestions from them to the shops on Long Island. Secondly, Grumman does not go in heavily for production gadgets. They use a human assembly line. When they want to move a fuselage on to the next working station, four men just pick it up and carry it over to another rack. As the ship under assembly becomes too heavy for that, they place it in a tube-steel cradle which can be rolled along by a couple of workmen whenever it is ready to be moved. The Willow Run plant is built around an enormous assembly track, with big endless chains to be moved by elaborate underground power. The system is too elaborate and it has resulted in a one-mpdel plant. To change you have to reconstruct the plant. Nobody overlooks the advantages of large-scale production nor the time saved by machines. But they may be more effective, like a good many other things, when taken in moderation.

By Eleanor Roosevelt

tions are stirred in the right direction, to have them become a well-spring of acticn. In any case, much of this play is applicable to the problems of today and I enjoyed it very much. I have a letter from a woman in Michigan, who tells me they have a problem in their Y. W. C. A. A good many of the women are working on the late shift, from 3 p. m. to midnight, and so they are trying to hold dances from 1 a. m. to 4:30 a. m. Otherwise, these women, who are either young girls or young married women, have no opportunity for social life. Some of the town’s people feel that they should go without entertainment, and so she asks my opinion.

If these youngsters have to work from 3 until mid-1

night, they probably have enough vitality to dance for another hour or two, and they get accustomed to sleeping well into the daytime. I should think that the “Y” was the best possible assurance to their parents,that the dances were well supervised and that the girls would be well looked after. On the whole, it seems to me betfer that they should dance in the Y. W. C. A. than that the youngsters Should go to a

Scripps-Howard

nylon. .

so satisfactory. But it also explains why Uncle Sam’s forces. are not suffering

from a shortage of silk. The Japanese sneak punch at Pearl Harbor meant, among other things, that America no longer could obtain the silk of Japan.

That would have been a serious situation but for nylon. Today, though deeply engrossed in war problems, du Pont chemists are thinking ahead of postwar days and new uses for nylon. They will tell you frankly that the possibilities for nylon are literally countless and they have no idea how many new developments time may bring. For the fine 3 silken thread Nani that goes into Mr. Dietz sheer hosiery is but one form In which nylon can be produced. It can be spun in the form of thick strands that can be used in place of gut to string tennis rackets. Already it is being made in the form of tapered filaments to re-

paint brushes. Nylon fabrics for curtains and furniture coverings, including velvet, mohair and plush, made of nylon yarn, are now being evolved. One of the most amazing de‘velopments is a window screen now under test in the du Pont laboratory which replaces the familiar wire screening with strands of nylon. This window screen without metal wire is but one of the postwar products visioned by Dr. C.

New Chemical Miracles . Are in Test Tubes Now

(Second of a Series) By DAVID DIETZ .

Science Editor

American paratroopers, practicing over army airfields the jumps that eventually will land them on the soil of Germany, Italy and Japan, float to earth on parachutes of

Nylon, developed after years of research by the chemists of E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., not only is going into vast numbers of parachutes but into many other war uses kept secret by the war department. That explains why milady no longer can get the nylon stockings, gloves, lingerie and girdles that she has found

place imported pig bristles in

. dustry,

M. A. Stine, vice president and advisor on research and development of the du Pont company. Others are wood that will not

. burn, glass that will not break,

and shoes that contain no leather. Parachutes of nylon are but one contribution of chemical industry to our part in world war II. It is difficult to point out all the places where chemistry touches the war. New plastics, new dyes, new drugs, all of them are finding important uses in the war. And in the sense that war in the last analysis consists in hurling a chemical product, namely, an ex-

, plosive, at the enemy, war is a

chemical business. America today is turning out better explosives and more explosives than the axis because the growth of the American chemical industry in the last two decades made possible the conversion and expansion required for manufacture of explosives in world war II. There is no more glorious story of American progress, no better example of the genius of American science and the courage of American business than the growth of the American chemical industry between world war I and world war II. : 2

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Built New Industry

THAT GROWTH was made possible by the faith and daring of American business men who ‘poured millions of dollars into the financing of chemical research and development. From that research came a whole new industry, the diversified chemical manufacturing *inan industry that not merely benefited those who financed it but which provided new employment for thousands of

Top left:

Typical scene in the du Pont research laboratories.

ingredient should be mentioned.

It is the millions of dollars that

Out

of such researches came nylon.

Top right:

Lower right: A historic photo.

Paratroopers float to earth on nylon parachutes today, explaining why nylon stockings are scarce.

The young lady wears one of the

first pairs of nylon stockings manufactured.

workers and paid dividends to the entire nation in the form of improved products at lower prices. It is paying its biggest dividend .to the American people today, a dividend that cannot be stated in dollars and cents, for it is preserving: American freedom and democracy by making possible the winning of the war, Let us go back a moment to 1914, to the outbreak of world war I, and see what the situation was then. Hardly had that war got under way before America discovered how dependent it had been upon the chemical industry of Europe, particularly Germany, for necessary chemicals, dyes and drugs. As the British blockade of Germany became more effective, our government was forced to ask Great Britain to permit Dutch ships to bring us German dyes. Otherwise, we ‘could not even have ‘printed postage stamps in color. . " ” ”

Prices Skyrocketed

PRICES OF DYES and drugs rose so rapidly that figures once quoted in cents became larger in .

dollars. A rise in price from 15 cents an ounce to $75 an ounce was a typical instance. A number of American corporations, pre-eminent among them the du Pont company, accepted this challenge. But perhaps few people appreciate the courage that this took. W: S. Carpénter Jr. president of du Pont, tells the story of the founding of that company’s dye works, the venture to make in America the needed dyes that were previously imported from Europe. “The money invested was considerable; the losses were heavy,” Mr. Carpenter said. “At the end

of the first five years the du Pont company had invested in this industry, in plants and working capital, $22,000,000, and in addition had suffered operating losses to the extent of $18,000,000, making to that date a total outlay of $40,000,000 without a cent of profit.” A : . ”

Profits Came Later

LATER, of course, there were profits, but the company has continued to increase its invest-: ment and the amount of money spent on researches to improve American dyes and other organic chemicals. : The same story can be told in the field of “fixed nitrogen.” The explosives used in world war II .have been made from the nitrogen of the air. Chemists speak of nitrogen thus extracted from the air as “fixed nitrogen.” At the outbreak of world war I, America did not have a single plant for the fixation of nitrogen. The nation was almost wholly dependent upon the natural nitrate deposits of Chile. The du Pont company went through a long and trying experience in the development of facilities for the fixation of nitrogen. This required an investment of nearly $30,000,000 in research, development and construction of plant facilities and 12 years went by before the operation changed from a loss_to a profit. ” ” ”

Nylon Cost Millions.

PERHAPS THE BEST example of what scientific research means to progress can be found in the story of nylon. It is often said that nylon is manufactured’ from

coal, air and water. But a fourth

du Pont threw into research that built the great laboratories, paid : the salaries of the research scien=tists and chemists and supplied them with the facilities and materials with which to work. As Dr. E. K. Bolton, chemical director of the du Pont company points out, the nylon researches ° did not begin as an attempt to find a substitute for silk. Instead, they began, back in 1928, as a long-range scientific study of the field of polymerization. The term polymerization is used to describe the process by which either nature or man puts small molecules together to form super= molecules. Examples of “poly= merization products” in nature are silk, rubber, resins and cotton. » 2 ”

Synthetic Chemistry

EARLY IN THIS study, Dr. Wallace H. Carothers and his ase sociates decided to study longs chain “polymers,” like those in "silk. Thus began the chain of events that resulted in the announcement on Oct. 28, 1938, of the development of nylon. In similar fashion, new plastics, new drugs, new dyes anc new lace quers have come out of the du Pont laboratories and the labore atories of other great: chemical concerns. Many of these have been new chemical compounds that never before have existed ‘in nature. Chemistry during the last 25 years has become synthetic chemistry, what the late Dr. Edwin E.‘ Slose son called “creative chemistry.” Chemists have disproved the . old notion that there was nothing new under the sun. They have

added the chemical kingdom to

the animal, vegetable and mineral kingdom. 2 ”» Painting Speeds Up

LIKE A MAGICIAN reaching into a plug hat and pulling out a rabbit that apparently wasn’t there, chemists reach into nature’s supply house and emerge with things that apparently weren't there, They reach into a pile of coal and produce dyes, drugs, explosives and varnishes. The chemist in the last 25 years has brought about important advances in agriculture, mining, the manufacture of automobiles, aire craft, steel, oil, paper, rubber, shoes, soaps and textiles. Twenty-five years ago camphor was a monopoly in the hands of the Japanese. Today chemists pro= duce synthetic camphor, chemically identical with the natural product, from southern turpentine. Cellulose from wood pulp or any other convenient source goes into the chemical plant and emerges as plastics, the familiar rayon and equaly familiar Cellophane. In 1913 it took six weeks to paint an automobile. By 1922 it took nine days. Today there are quick-drying lacquers which make it possible to do the job in a few hours. But the research chemist has little time to brag about his past - accomplishments. He is busy wine

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- ning the war and planning the

marvels of the postwar world.

TOMORROW: V: Lights - of the future.

ARMY-NAVY FABRIC NEEDS MAY BE GUT

WASHINGTON, Feb. 23 (U. P).— The possibility that military requirements for certain fabrics may be reduced slightly in 1943 was raised today in a joint statement issued by Undersecretary of War Robert P. Patterson and Undersecretary of Navy James V. Forrestal. This would help avoid any future rationing of clothing, Officials have repeatedly emphasized there are no present plans for such rationing.

“It has been possible since Pearl Harbor not only te take care of the

and navy, but also to accumulate textile reserves necessary for maintenance and replacement purposes,” the statement said. “It appears, therefore, as of the present time, that the cotton and woolen textile industries have in general achieved the maximum rate of production on military fabrics that they are likely to be called upon to provide during 1943. It is possible that military requirements of certain fabrics may be slightly reduced during the current year.”

GO AHEAD AI*D PULL IT CHICAGO, Feb. 23 (U. P.).—Do you have a bad tooth beyond recovery? Go:ahead and have it pulled out. Brig. Gen. Robert H. Mills, chief of the army dental corps, said today that false teeth would not be

increased inductions in the army

Revenue Bureau Asks Impossible

ALBANY, N. Y., Feb. 23 (U. P.). —One section of the internal revenue burean’s financial statement form for men in military service reads: “My present military service began on - = -, 194 -- for a period which willend on = = -, 194 - » A puzzled applicant wrote on the edge of the application: “There are a few million people in this war-torn world who wish they knew the answer to this one.” Officials of the revenue bureau, reminded that set-term enlistments have been abolished until after the war, were a bit flustered. “Applicants will just write ‘duration’ jn the second blank on the section,” they ordered.

‘RETURN COUNTRY TO CITIZENS’—WILLKIE

LITTLE ROCK, Ark., Feb. 23 (U. P.).—Wendell Willkie told the Arkansas legislature today that

| farmers are ready and willing to make any necessary sacrifices to win

the war, but that when the war is won, ‘they want the country returned tq the citizens because “they are tired of regimentation.” The Republican leader accepted an invitation to address the legislature after the house had adopted a resolution by its two Republican

fuealiers to. insite im. The reso-

WILLIS IS UNGERTAIN ON FARM FURLOUGHS

Times Special

WASHINGTON, Feb. 23.—Both Indiana senators signed the Bankhead bill to defer farm labor in the draft, but only Senator Frederick VanNuys (D. Ind.) signed the bill to furlough soldiers back to farms. Sen. Raymond E. Willis (R. Ind.) explained today that he was not ready to sign the latter bill when it was introduced earlier this week. “I signed the measure to defer farm labor so that loca] draft boards will be given greater authority to act on this vital need,” Senator Willis said. “But I was uncertain in my own mind. about the other bill. I certainly do not want to upset the army any more than will be necessary to see that the wartime food goals are reached. They cannot be attained unless something is done speedily to help solve the farm labor problem.” Senator VanNuys said he signed both bills “because I think that the farmers in Indiana want them 3 Senator John Bankhead (D. Ala.) is the author of the measures. He obtained 37 co-sponsors for the draft deferment bill and 27 for the furlough plan. .

INDORSE LEGION CANDIDATE SOUTH BEND, Feb. 23 (U. P.) — South Bend ‘Legionnaires indorsed Henry E. Siebenmark of Michigan City, last night, as candidate for

northern vice commander of the In-

Vichy French in U.S. on Rations

HERSHEY, Pa., Feb. 23 (U. P.). —For ration purposes, the Vichy French diplomats interned at the Palatial Hershey hotel today were placed in the same status as hospital patients and institutional inmates. : The local rationing board ruled that the diplomats were ‘ineligible for No. 2 war ration books to replace the books they obtained prior to internment. They are fed by the government.

25 ‘MAKE md ‘A’ MARKS AT BUTLER

Twenty-five undergraduate students in the college of liberal arts and ‘sciences and the college of education at Butler university, made

straight “A” records last semester. |

Joan Carey, Christina Cherpas, Katherine Clyde Holder, Ruth Krampe, Helen Hock, Mary Margaret O'Donnell and Mary Jane Steiner are on the honor list of the college of education. The college of liberal arts and sciences honor roll includes Esther enjamin, Margaret Byram, Mary Louise Chappell, Barbara Fuller, Maryellen Hanley, Elizabeth Heassler, Meda C. Lorton, Suzanne Masters, Donald Morgan, Eleanor Mundell, Helen Nofike, Jon Henry Rouch, Mary Margarette Schortemeier, Elizabeth Smith, Robert Ter-

rican, Sara Beth EE rou -

yolsmant and 4

5 NAVY SHIPS TAKE WAYS AT TAMPA

TAMPA, Fla., Feb. 23 (U. P.).—= A large destroyer tender and four minesweepers will be launched at the Tampa shipbuilding yards to= day, seventh naval district officials revealed. The launching will push the shipe: yards’ production to 18 ships come pleted in 128 days. Mrs. Fred M. Earle of Bremerton, Wash.,, wife of Capt. F. M. Earle, U.S.N., will sponsor the launche ing of the U.S. S. Sierra, newest of the navy’s destroyer tenders. :

HOLD EVERYTHING