Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 26 February 1943 — Page 19

The Indianapolis

By Ernie Pyle

Alumi R h patch I listened to dozens of personal escape stories. » ie : : Every time I.would get within ear-shot of another Re. om or is mm wine ms DIG FACTOr IN UL J. happened to him the day before. ; ef

(Continued from Page One) y we stopped the jeep and got far off the road some cactus hedges, but the German dive were interested® only. | in our troop concen-

Ccactus, “patch covered about two acres.

mile off the road. We figured this was the

ome of the forward command post, and it They had Straggled in during the night and.

Be hidden half a dozen half-tracks, a couple

, three light tanks and a couple -of -motorall. that was left of the impressive array of

Zid 18 hours before. The commanding general had already gone

The remainder of the com-

' ‘mand post were just sitting.

around on the ground. Half. of their comrades "were missing.’ There was nothing left for them to work with, nothing todo. When I came into this cactus patch the officers that I knew, and had left only four days’ before,: jumped. up and shook hands as:

| though we hadn’t seen each other in years. ' Enlisted

3 “shook hands.

Inside Indianapolis By Lowell Nussbaum

Sow they. felt.

men did the same thing. Te ‘thought this was odd, at first, but now I. know They had been away—far along on

| the road that doesn’t come back—and now that they were ‘still miraculously alive it. was like returning from a voyage of many years, “and naturally you

An Eager to Tell Stories " DURING THE NEXT few hours there in the cactus

An in the 1200 block, Burdsall pkwy., and that's a sure sign, he says.

ASKED WHAT he thought about the palatial home the legislature is talking about buying for a governor’s

Gus”

: Governor Schricker’s only comment was: “Tn et. ‘there's not a corncob on the place.” ral readers report

«oo Seve seeing a couple of small boys flying a kite in University park—right down town. They were doing all right, too; had the kite up above the K. of P. building. . . . In front

~ of a parking lot at 118 S. Senate

ave. there’s a sign reading: “Please drop money in slot. I am unable to pay a man. I am relying on your honesty. Thank you.—QOwn-

. er.” We couldn’t see whether any-

one had dropped any money in the slot in the door of the shanty, but the lot was full of cars. .. .

* Signs of the times: A vending ma- { oh N. Illinois advertises “pinball machines cheap for home amusement.”". . . James L. 705 Highland pl, a mail carrier, is sure spring

‘e. YeSterday he heard a. meadowlark singing

Housecleaning Club

MARY ARE ‘the changes wrought by the war. For instance, a small club of North side women used to meet every week or so to play bridge. They still meet,

but they don’t play bridge any more. have Ee tar parties. members, get on aprons and help clean ‘big help in this era of domrestic help Members of the group art Mrs. Paul

4 fous ®

Instead, they They meet at the home

yf f Kramer, Mrs. J. Edward Faust, Mrs. Leonard Becki | erich, Mrs. Victor Beckerich, Mrs. Joseph E. Kirk and

Mrs. 'N. J. Fritz. . . . Edwin Alderman, now of Dayton, /general at Ft. Knox, not Camp Shelby. We checked but who lived here until 1935, has been getting quite with the mayor’s office, where we got the original in-

: a bit of attention nationally for his work in intercept-

“" § ing short wave broadcasts from. Berlin and Tokyo

| A V ashington

the: ‘submarine.

vail TD

- Secretary Knox says sinkings have been reduced dutife the last ‘three months. But don’t read much Significance into that. Bad weather may explain the

drop. That's what Secretary Knox thinks. He finds nothing on which to base hopes for early stopping of the submarine menace. Sinkings are obscured so that the public does not have a forceful picture of the damage they do to our war effort. Lend-lease officials give the impression in their

“public statements that the sub-

marine menace is licked as far as supplies for Russia are concerned. Statements about the absence of sinkings may mislead people into

hinking the danger is past. But the danger is far from over. Precious space 46 obtained for a shipment of some given commodity. Much depends on its prompt arrival. It is sunk on

the way.

Then comes another struggle to find space

for a replacement shipment. Time lost may be as

| Foi

sas the material lost. t is why there is the saying that a ship saved

m the submarine is worth two that may be built replace it. Time, crews, the cargo, and the bottom 1 are all involved.

here Is No Magic Panacea LITERALLY THOUSANDS of suggestions have

n made for dealing with submarines.

But no

magic panacea has been found and amateur assistce at this late date is not likely to produce the

wer. In fact there may be no one answer at all. The submarine is the one weapon that we are un-

y Day

WASHINGTON, Thursday—In. all the manpower

sions going on at present, I do not think. enough s has been laid on the fact that a young man

p young woman, or an older man or older woman, ec for a job can do a great deal more than

anyofie who is not trained. All through Great Britain I was met by the recurring refrain—“women can do anything that men can do, short of something requiring mere

+ brute strength, if they are prop-

erly trained.” We are all so excited about obhtaining manpower, and yet we have put little emphasis on the training that is needed for’ efficiency. . The industries themselves like to train their own people, but it will“ shorten their period of

if a certain amount of: basic training is

; all those going to work in industry or on the

s the real reason why the national youth tion is training yo industry and farm work. It is of inestima-

men and young

‘ to pour out. ‘And since I was the only newcomer to

' ture became a composite, and today it is in my mind

‘asleep at midday. And I, satiated with the adven-

Topsy and Turvy

faney varieties. . . .

: their nation, but who, unfortunately, I am not. able

Talk abouf having to pull stories out of people— you couldn’t keep these guys from talking. There was something pathetic and terribly touching about it. Not one of them had ever thought he’d see this dawn, and now that he had seen it his emotions had

show up since their escape, I made a perfect sounding board. * The minute a man would start talking he'd begin drawing lines on the ground with his shoe or a stick, to show the roads and how he came. I'll bet I had that battleground scratched in the sand for me 50 times during the forenoon. It got so I could hardly keep from laughing at the fonsisteney of their patterns.

Stories All Become One

THAT MORNING should have been by all rights a newspaperman’s dream. There were fantastic stories of escape, intimate recountings of fear and elation. Any one of them would have made a firstpage feature story in any newspaper. Yet I was defeated by the flood of experiences. I listened until the stories finally became merged, overlapping and paralleling and contradicting until the whole adven-

as in theirs a sort of generalized blur. The sun came out warmly as though to soothe their jagged feelings, and one by one the men in the cactus patch stretched on the ground and fell wearily

tures of the day before, lay down and slept too, waiting for the day's new battle to begin. (Continued Tomorrow) :

listing the names of American prisoners of war. He passes on the information by mail to relatives of the captives. Mr. Alderman formerly was with the Safe Cabinet Co., and frequently returns here for visits,

A BLIND WOMAN got on a bus the other day and almost immediately knew that the bus operator was a woman. How? Well, sir, it wasn’t ‘by the driving, as some of you smarties might think, but by the softness of the operator's hand when the blind woman placed her fare in it. . . . Gus Hitzelberger, who runs the Liberal View league, out on Bluff rd., now has two dogs. Besides Topsy, a one-time. stray who now “owns” the piace, there's one of Topsy’s most recent pups, named Turvy. Topsy’s getting old, and Gus thought he ought to be training a successor who some day will take over the name of Topsy. . . . Overheard as two young women walked past the phone company building: “The headline says Rommel’s attack is beaten off. Who is this. Rommel? Is he an our side or: theirs?”

Fine Beans, My Friends RAY PETERSON, advertising manager of Stokely’s, showed the Advertising club yesterday a film in which such celebrities as President Roosevelt, Churchill, Chamberlain; Stalin, Daladier, Hitler, and even Mussolini, gave brief talks extolling the merits of Stokely and Van Camp products. The film was made up from shots taken by the March of Time, with the sound

cleverly dubbed in. ...

lists: “Plain shaves, 35 cents.” They don’t list any

on the mayor's chauffeur, says the drivel’s name is Harold Cline, not Klein, and he used to drive for the

formation. They checked with the chauffeur. says it’s Cline and Ft. Knox. Sorry.

By Raymond Clapper

able to engage in combat on its own level. The enemy airplane is attacked by our airplanes. The enemy ‘surface naval ship is atfacked by our naval ships. But the submarine comes up in one of our convoys, fires its torpedoes and dives to escape. We have no means of engaging the enemy submarine in its own sphere. We can only drop depth charges. Some kind of ramming craft, fast enough to dive and engage the submarine in combat, would put our submarine warfare on the same level as air and surface warfare. It is incredible that more was not done to anticipate submarine warfare in the 20 years between the two wars. We have made progress in combat aircraft and mechanized combat vehicles, yet the standard weapon against the submarine continues to be the world war depth charge.

More Facts Might Be Given People

THE POPULAR IDEA is that the place to attack the submarine is when it comes up to torpedo a ship in a convoy. But the submarine may be more vulnerable at some other place. For instance, the factory where the components that go into a submarine are manufactured may be easier to hit than the submarine diving in the midst of a convoy. The assembly plant where the subs are put together may be easier to hit than the sub out in.the ocean. The yards adjacent to the pens: where the subs come in .for overhaul are targets that we have been bombing by air intensively in such attacks as those on Lorient. The popular idea that the war is almost won—an idea that the administration finds it difficult to combat—might be more easily disposed of if more facts about submarine losses were given to the people. If that had been done a month ago we might have had less public quarreling over whether escort ships should take second place to Synthetic) rubber.

By Eleanor Russe

project at Quoddy, near Eastport, Me. because it shows exactly what is being accomplished to further the war effort, s After lunch on Wednesday, I ‘stopped at the national housing administration office to see the furniture which they have developed for the governmemt dormitories and government war housing. They work with the manufacturers and, by doing so, have succeeded in obtaining prices which are phenomenally low.’ The little dormitory rooms are nicely furnished with a bed (which can easily be used as a couch in the day time) an arm chair, a chest of drawers and a mirror. The bed has.a good spring and a good mattress and the cost of it all is under $50. This furniture seems to be well Juilt, simple in line and good in construction, ‘At 4 o'clock, Mme, Chiang asked me to be present at her conference with the magazine press, which was to me most interesting. Then Mrs. Carl Dalbey and her son, Carl Jr, who. has twice been torpedoed on a merchant marine: ship, came to tea with me. I feel that the honor of “coming to the White House is a recognition not only of the heroism of this particular mother and son, but that they symbolize many mothers, sons, husbands and wives t the country who do just as much for

A barber shop at 104 S. Illinois |

A reader corrects our recent item|

Plants now nearing completion

for war.

needed to be done. Americans thrilling with pride at the performance of Uncle Sam’s bomber and fighter planes on every front, think first of the brave young men who sit at the controls of those lying warships, plot their courses by sun and stars, man their cannon and machine guns, and t operate the bomb sights that send. Mr. Dietz «jock - busters” crashing on German factories. A second thought goes to the unbelievably gigantic plants where tens of thousands of workers build these planes, the engines that go into them, and the guns and radios and secret devices that complete their equipment. A few people picture what is behind those great plants, the scientific laboratories where engineers and physicists test model planes in wind tunnels, try out engines in “stratosphere chambers,” and devise the gadgets that give Uncle Sam the world’s best bomb-sight and other advantages of battle. # ” 2

Story of Courage

BUT IT IS doubtful if even a handful of citizens, as they read of today’s battles, think back to the days at the close of world war I when a group of skilled metallurgists and chemists began the task of making alloys and aluminum strong enough to replace the wooden struts and canvas wings of the “flying crates” of that conflict. It is the story of those researches at the end of world war I that I want to tell, for it is’ the. basic story of why American planes are winning today on every front. It is the story of courage and vision on the part of executives of the Aluminum Company of America, who foresaw a future for aluminum in the aviation industry and bet millions of dollars on the chance that their research men could make that future come true. ‘They made it come true by producing aluminum alloys with the lightness and strength that the designers of modern fightér and - bomber planes demanded. Each time those designers, planning a faster fighter or a bigger bomber, told the king of alloy they needed, the company’s metallurgists came through with it.

JUDGE WARNS OF “| 'WAR HYSTERIN'

Stone Asks U. S. Courts To Uphold Justice

In All Cases.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 26 (U. P.) .— Chief Justice Harlan PF. Stone yesterday appealed to federal judges throughout the country to see that war hysteria is kept out of the courts. Addressing 200 lawyers and judges attending the third annual judicial circuit conference for the District of Columbia, Justice Stone said that “even in. sabofage and espionage cases, ‘it is ‘important to see that the defendants are evenly treated. “In those cases as in any others, it is important to see that the emotions: of war are kept out of the courts. There is nothing more important.” Stone urged judges not to enlist or accept war jobs. He said that if judges cannot keep properly occupied he has “means to give them all the judicial work they can do.” Attorney General Francis Biddle told the conference that the prime job of the justice. department is to see that nothing is done to deter the war effort, while continuing’ to maintain the ‘essential civil liberties. He said that not one case of actual - sabotage originating in an enemy nation has been discovered here since the beginning of the war.

NAMED LABOR UMPIRE DETROIT, Feb, 26 (U. P.).—The Ford Motor Co. and the United Automobile Workers (C. I. 0.) announced yesterday that Dr. Harry Schulman, former Yale university law professor, has accepted the po-

Janie of impartial umpire in major rand

disputes between the

Airplane Supremacy

(Fifth of a Series)

By DAVID DIETZ Scripps-Howard Science Editor

TO ATTAIN PRESIDENT Roosevelt's goal of more than 100,000 airplanes in 1943, aviation companies will use more aluminum this year than would be needed to furnish every one of the nation’s 34,000,000 homes with a resplendent 30-piece set of aluminum cooking utensils.

will double the country’s capacity

to produce aluminum, bringing the 1942 figure of more than 1,000,000,000 pounds to 2,100,000,000. Seventy-three per cent of that will go into airplanes, most of the remainder into devices and weapons needed

Expansion of the nation’s aluminum producing facilities has been one of the real miracles of this war. miracles of industrial research for aluminum would be useless in this war were it not for the work of the physicits, chemists and metallurgists who developed aluminum alloys combining the natural lightness of the metal with the necessary strength to do the Job that’s

But it is likewise one of the

The other afternocon.in Pittsburgh, I sat in the office of S. K. Colby, vice president of the Aluminum Company of America, and listened to him tell the inspiring story of those researches that are now paying dividends to the United Staves and its allies in the form of air superiority over the Atlantic and the Pacific, over North Africa and Europe. Airplanes in world war I were made of wood. Some wag once said they were composed of saw=dust and glue. They were truly flying crates. Aluminum was tried first not in planes but in those gigantic monsters of the air, the Zeppelins, “Our government learned in 1916 that the Germans had developened a hard alloy of aluminum called duralumin and that they were using it for the framework of their Zeppelins,” Mr. Colby told me. “On July 26, 1916, Rear Admiral D. W. Taylor of the U. S. navy wrote to A. V. Davis, then president of the Aluminum Company of America, suggesting that the company undertake the development of an alloy similar to duralumin for airship purposes. ” ” ®

Research Is Begun

“AS A RESULT, the company undertook to develop alloys that could be fabricated into the girders of big airships, but on April 6, 1917, the United States entered world war I. The navy was now too busy for further experimental tests and all the facilities of the company were taxed to capacity fulfilling orders: for mess Kits,

~ castings and the like.

“After the war, negotiations were resumed and the company undertook not only to develop the materials but to fabricate the lattices and other girder parts needed for the nation’s first rigid airship of the Zeppelin type, the Shenandoah. “But we believed that aluminum had a future in the airplane in-

“dustry as well and so we began

researches along these lines also.” Mr. Colby emphasizes one extremely significant factor in the picture. In every country in Europe, aluminum research was being subsidized, directly or indirectly, by government as part of the program of military security. In this country, it was left to the company to carry on its own researches at its own expense. But for the willingness of the company to do this, nothing would ’have been accomplished.

Top: This flying fortress, the Boeing B-17E, symbolizes the nation’s aluminum program today. Lower left: A hot strip of aluminum from the rollers of a continuous strip mill, shoots across a. “run-out table,” two city blocks long, in one of the plants of the Aluminum Company of America. Lower right: A skilled workman manipulites an aluminum alloy forging.

Figures Tell Story

THE WHOLE story is most quickly told with the aid of some figures put at my disposal by Mr. Colby. Here they are: In 1921, Uncle Sam placed orders for 485 military airplanes. No civil planes were built and no aluminum was used in the structure of any of the military planes. That year the Aluminum Company of America, produced 42,700,000 pounds of aluminum and spent $273,800 on research. A portion of that research—a good guess would be 10 or 15 per cent—was to develop the use of aluminum for aircraft purposes. The figures for 1924 show essentially the same picture and so I will not quote them except to remark that Uncle Sam‘ordered only 154 military planes that year. Still no aluminum was going into planes but the company continued to spend a large percentage of its research outlay on the problem. We come now to 1928. That year a total of 4800 planes were built in this country, 3500 civil planes and 1300 military planes. Aluminum had now made its debut in the aviation world. That year the company produced 212,000,000 pounds of aluminum and 3,964,000 pounds or 1.7 per cent of it went into planes, an average of 770 pounds per plane. Research outlay at the company’s laboratories was $960,000 and 10 per cent of it, the company records show, went for research in the aviation field. ” ” ®

Research Goes On

LET US JUMP now to 1937, two years before the outbreak of world war II. In that year 3188 airplanes were built in this country of which 2238 were civil planes, 950 military. That year the Aluminum company produced 310,200,00 pounds of aluminum of which 18,134,000

Greek Church Decorates

F.D.R. With

WASHINGTON, Feb. 26 (U. P.).— The oldest decoration of Christianity, the Grand Cross of the Holy Sepulchre, was conferred on President Roosevelt yesterday. This highest blessing of the Greek orthodox church was - bestowed by His Beatitude, Timotheos, the Greek patriarch of Jerusalem. It was brought to the White House by a delegation of Greek churchmen, headed by the Most Rev. Athenagoras, archbishop of the Greek orthodox church of North and South America. Mr. Roosevelt was prevented by a slight illness from receiving the decoration in person. His military aide, Maj. Gen. Edwin M. Watson, accepted it for him. The cross had locked within its gold structure a piece of the sacred wood from the cross of Christ.

Highest Award

The Greek churchmen also brought to the President a small stone: from Calvary, the site of the crucifixion, and a book on presentday activities of tHe orthodox church in Russia, which, according to the archbishop, is documentary evidence “that there is no religious persecution” in the Soviet union today. Only other American to hold the Grand Cross of the Holy Sepulchre was former President Warren G. Harding. The archbishop said the order, which dates from the era of Constantine and the Byzantine empire, was conferred upon the President in recognition ‘of his “ceaseless efforts in behalf of liberty, justice and peace, and in recognition of the fact that the essence of Christ's teachings is found in the four freedoms of the Atlantic charter.”

PROPOSE ARMY, NAVY AVIATION ACADEMIES

WASHINGTON, Feb. 26 (U.P.).— Senator Tom Stewart (D. Tenn.) introduced a bill today to establish a military aviation academy and a naval aviation academy. Each academy would have four branches to which appointments would be made in the same manner cadets and midshipmen are appointed now to West Point and Annapolis. The military aviation branches would be located in the Southwest, the area between the Rocky mountains and the Mississippi river, the

central part of the southern United States, and the East. The naval aviation branches would be located in the Great Lakes region, the Pacific Coast, the Gulf of Mexico area, and the Atlantic

But They Don't Get Beer Ration

BOSTON, Feb. 26 (U. P.)— American soldiers now receive five times more fruit and vegetables in their daily ration than were issued to the Continental army— but they don’t get a quart of spruce beer or cider which the - Colonials quaffed each day. The army’s Boston quartermaster depot disclosed today that a 1943 doughboy receives 35 ounces of vegetables and fruits daily as compared with the ration of seven ounces in 1775, Daily rations of meat and milk were the same then as now—a pound of meat and a pint of milk.

ROOSEVELT KIN GETS JOB DETROIT, Feb. 26 (U. P.).—Mrs. Dorothy Kemp Roosevelt, sister-in-law of Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt, yesterday was appointed to the staff

of the labor production division of [bill

tion board's Detroit

pounds or 5.8 per cent went into airplanes. This was an average of 5700 pounds per plane. But now let us take a look at the research outlay for the year. The company spent $1,376,000 on research, a very considerable advance over 1928, but what is even more significant, 25 per cent of it went into airplane research. In other words, the company spent

on something that accounted for oniy 5.8 per cent of its business in 1937. And now finally let us have a look at 1942 when America was in world war II. The picture is completely different but possible only because of what was done before. There were 49,000 planes built in 1942 and they were all military. More than a billion pounds of aluminum were produced in the United States and about 63 per cent of it went into airplanes.

Jay TH Te * Finest. Laboratories

OF EQUAL SIGNIFICANCE is the figure for research. In 1942 The Aluminum company spent $2,072,000 on research and 40 per cent of it went into airplane research. I have long been familiar with tite research laboratories of the Aluminum Company of America and visited them requently before the war days. Then it was possible to enter many of the workrooms which are now closed territory by order of the U. S. army. The scientific equipment and personnel of these laboratories made them some of the finest in the world. Here are instruments of such accuracy that they constitute, in effect a private “bureau of standards.” There are no researches into the fundamental characteristics of metals and their alloys which cannot be carried out in these labora-

JOB INSURANCE

BILL ADVANGED|

Ready for Final Action in House; Quitting Without ‘Cause Penalized.

- The Republican platform. bill to liberalize unemployment compensu.tion advanced to the passage stage in the house today after being amended to tighten penalties on employees who quit their jobs without cause.

Labor groups charged: that in .its|

present form the bill's liberalizing features were more than offset by the increased penalty for “voluntary quits.” ‘The amendment, adopted yesterday, provided that any employee who: leaves his employer without cause would receive no unemployment compensation at all and would lose wage credits accrued in the account of the employer he left. GOP leaders who approved the amendment said it was aimed only at “chiselers” who quit their jobs for the sole purpose of drawing unemployment benefits, and would not affect individuals who left their jobs to take other work. Labor leaders asserted, however, that the amend-

ment would “freeze” employees in| L

their present jobs since they would face loss of wage credits if they resigned. The present law only penalizes a worker to the extent of an additional three weeks waiting period for leaving his. job without cause. The amendments proposed in the house also would provide that any unemployed person drawing benefits

would be cut off the benefit rolls} | immediately if he or she refused|

to accept suitable employment. Two attempts by Democrats to increase maximum and minimum benefits provided in the bill were beaten down by the house. The

from the. presen for 16

tories. One section is equipped for experimental melting, casting and “rolling of aluminum alloys. Electrically heated furnaces are provided for the study of heat treatments. Special - electrical equipment makes it possible to obtain temperatures up to 5400 degrees Fahrenheit. » ” s

Look to Future

MICROSCOPES are provided for the examination of grain size and other structural features of alloys. These microscopes are supplemented: by X-ray equipment with which it is possible to probe into the alloys far beyond the ability of the human eye to see. With this equipment. it is possible to chart the locations of the invisible atoms in the complicated lattices that make up the crystals of the alloys. Out-of these laboratories in the decade between 1929 and 1939 there came many advances besides those in the. airplane, field. These included new types of lighting reflectors, many products finished in color by the alumite process, aluminum window casings for homes and office buildings, aluminum beer barrels and alumijum freecutting alloys that speed up production and therefore reduce the time required to produce many articles needed in the war program, Today, though the war is the No. 1 item in the laboratories, executives realize that once the war is over they must take up these older problems where they left them. They must once again return to the task of making aluminum contribute to a happier, finer, and more comfortable life for the people of America.

NEXT—X-rays, guns and electric power.

Let Workers Visit ‘Front'—Mrs. R.

LINDEN, N. J., Feb. 26 (U. P). —Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt suggested .yesterday that small groups of plant foremen and defense workers be taken to combat zones “to give them a sense of the urgency and importance of their work.” During an inspection trip of the eastern aircraft division of Gen- ' eral Motors Corp., Mrs. Roosevelt said that in England aircraft workers sometimes were taken to the flying fields where they saw their products take off on bombing expeditions. “Then they wait around for the checking in,” she said, “and you can’t imagine how anxious they are, It gives the workers a real sense of the urgency of their jobs and the necessity for doing everything exactly right.”

RUSS GENERAL KILLED LONDON, Feb. 26 (U. P.).—Lieut. Gen. Grigori Kravchenko of ihe Red air force has been killed in action, the Moscow radio reported last night.

HOLD EVERYTHING

“increases + maximum benefits| fer. +