Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 5 April 1943 — Page 9

Hoosier Vagabond

SIDI- BEL.ABBES, Algeria—The French Foreign « Legion has changed greatly from the dcregs-of- > RMumanity catch-all that it once was. But it is still wholly a fighting outfit, and any- ~ thing that exists solely to fight is bound to be tough. As a result, the legionfiaire lives in a mental environment that is deadly. There is little reason or inclination for high thinking. . Legionnaires are lonely. There is little outside their military life

for them. They can sit in the

cafes and drink, and that’s about all. Many of them carry on regular correspondence with women all over the world whom they've never seen, even with Americans. They say it isn’t unusual to see among: ‘the want ads in ‘the Paris papers a plea from & Foreign Legionnaire for a pen-pal. The loneliness and longing for other days is proved, it seems to me, by one. little vital statistic. Every year around Christmas five or six legionnaires commit suicide.

The Penalties Are Severe

THE LEGION is full of “characters.” There is one’ Russian, a carpenter,:who has been indulging in a peculiar routine as long as legionnaires can

remember,

. On every pay day, which is twice a month, he

himself a large bucket of wine. He puts it the floor beside his cot, gets plenty of cigarets, then es down and starts drinking and smoking. | He'll drink himself into a stupor, sleep a few hours, then wake up and start drinking again. He .hever gets out of bed, makes any noise, or causes ( #ny trouble. His jag lasts two days. It’s been going ‘on so long the officers. just accept it.

But just let a- legionnaire get out of control on the street or on duty, and the penalties are severe. For extreme drunkenness a legionnaire can get nine| months in the disciplinary regiment—which means ‘nine months far away on the desert, working from dawn till’ .dusk, with poor food, no cigarets, no wine, :no mail. Evén - tor slight infractions he gets eight days in ‘jail, with his head shaved. They say any man. who “goes through a five-year enlistment without getting his head shaved is either an angel or extremely lucky. At the end of a five-year enlistment the legion gives a “good conduct certificate.” The legionnaires are so tough that only half of them get the certificate. Those who don’t get it have only two choices: 1. Re-enlistment for another five years. 8. Lifetime expulsion from the entire French empire. (So the bad omnes sign up again.) : ‘Live to Fight for Fight's Sake THE LEGION does do many things for its men. Here at Bel-Abbes the legion has built a huge modern ! theater, where movies are shown and band concerts “given, The men even put on their own theatricals, ‘and the: legion has a 350-piece band. Nearby is a new concrete swimming pool, ‘the largest in North Africa. I've never seen anything in Hollywood to beat it. It is surrounded by tiled ‘terraces, with tables and chairs and cabanas, and with green -trees and riots of flowers. It has been a marvelous experience to visit, after all these years and in this remote part of the world, then men about whom “Beau Geste” was written. You can’t help admiring the legion’s pride in itself, its fastidious discipline, its cleanliness, its whole tradition. But beyond that, life in the Foreign Legion seems to be horrible. Living to fight only for the fights sake is something I- cannot understand.

ao.

nude Indianapolis By Lowell Nussbaum

y A£

JIM STRICKLAND, state OPA director, is giving

‘court. He's going to have it plowed up for a victory

garden as soon as he can arrange the plowing. . . . Roscoe Conkle, president of the school board, is very proud of the 60 or so piglets on his farm. Roscoe ;says he’s going to plant a lot of Missouri wonder beans right in with his corn this year. . . . Bill Evans, head of the schools’ publications department, and Mrs:-—Evans celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary Friday. Bill gave Mrs. Evans a set of dishes. . . . More than 16,000 school kids have enrolled for victory garden projects this year, four times as many as signed up last year. ... Shortridge students have collected more than 1000 old electric light bulbs in connection with the campaign to salvage the brass bases and the filaments?in thie bulbs. The school hoard recommends, however, that school pupils place the bulbs in the regular collection places in drug stores and groceries, because of the danger of broken glass in the schools. . . . The schools are, however, backing the collection of old radio Headphones, for the signal corps training school, and of canes to be used by convalescent service men. The latter campaign is He by Fathers of Sons in the Service,

O. K. to Clean Flags

THERE'S BEEN quite a bit of discussion, pro and con,-recently on the question: Is it proper to clean flags, or should they be destroyed when they become dirty? We didn’t know either, so we called American W Legion headquarters. There, they quoted Col. James “> A. Moss, one-time head of the U. S. Flag association, as follows: “It is permissible to wash or dry clean the flag, but it must be dried in a way that does not suggest carelessness or disrespect.” You're welcome. . . « One of our agents thought he was seeing things the other day when he glanced atthe north steps of the Circle monument and saw a nicely dressed young woman walking slow down the steps, backward, with her hands extended and a small flock of pigeons following her. Our agent says she kept right on backing around the Circle to the west until she was

Washington

WASHINGTON, April :5.—All parties concerned must bear blame for the breakdown in tax legislation. This breakdown is a serious reflection in the competency of both our treasury department and our ways and means committee. They have, between them, booted the taxpayers around. They have made political footballs of us. For a year it has been obvious that the extremely high tax rates made necessary by the war required a revision of the 30-year-old method of paying income taxes the year after the income was received. Only theorists. and muleheaded prima donnas questioned the practical need of getting on a pay-as-you-earn basis. It also has been obvious for a year that a dangerous excess of Pirchasiag & power was coming and that not only heavy war bond purchases but forced savings or tax collection at the source were going to be necessary. A+ The country is short of goods. We must therefore Rye ourselves money-poor, -short of ready cash.

Obstruction but Little Leadership

ALL THIS IS beyond argument, except to those looking for votes at any price. Certainly a majority of the house was ready toact favorably. The close vote said plainly that congress is ready to act if the experts and the committee leaders specializing in these matters will get together.. The administration is providing obstruction but not much leadership. A> current collection plan would have been adopted if the administration had not used every resource to kill it. The treasury experts who fought the one positive effort—the Ruml plan—did not produce an acceptable alternative.

My Day

SEATTLE, Wash. Sunday—Friday was a busy day. We started off in the méiming to visit a factory Which was created to meet a war need. It will probably disappear when the war is over, unless we develop the same kind of affection for the “Pacific hut,” that some of the soldiers I saw in Great Britain had for their Nissen huts. This plant, known as the “Pacific hut,” employs about 500 men and ships as many wooden huts tp Alaska as transportation will al-

low. It is an interesting factory

because everything has had to be "improvised. The machinery is simple and very rough, but easy to use, so that they can give jobs to men on their way through to Alaska, who: ave a few days to spare in Sea or to men who are into the services and need to work, be taken when long preparation is nseded

ove in abu 1a give, Hak ais greases

- uncertainty for many months.

out of sight. A little later our agent looked up at

“fond, farewell glances these days to his bandminton the steps and there the woman was again, going

through the same procedure. Sounds like a feminine pied piper with a penchant for pigeons.

A Fugitive From Mumps

MORGAN COLLINS, an executive of the P, R. Mallory plant, returned last week from a business trip to New York and discovered he was an exile from his own home. One of his three children has the

. mumps and, since he never has had the disease him-

self, he is staying away from home. He doesn’t know how long his exile may last. It depends upon whether the other two children catch the disease and extend the quarantine period. . . . Folks passing a woman emptying a gallon canful of gasoline into a car stalled on the east side of the Circle got a laugh Friday noon. The reason they laughed was that on the windshield of the car were three stickers— A, B and C. And still it was out of gas. . . . Looking at our calendar, we discover it's only 263 days until Christmas which, incidentally, falls on Saturday. Memorial day falls on Sunday as does July 4th.

Food for the Picking

FRANK WALLACE; the state entomologist, got his mind off bugs for a moment today and came up with a suggestion on how to make food rationing points go farther. Frank says dandelions are. springing up all over town and in a few days will be large enough

to pick for greens. By picking them you “kill two

birds with one stone,” says Frank: You not only rid

the lawn of pesky weeds, but you also provide a tasty

dish chock-full of vitamins, . . . Kenneth Dodgson, a Broad Ripple high school student, has been chosen as one of the semi-finalists from whom three students will be chosen to speak on the April 15 broadcast of. America’s Town Meeting of the Air. Kenny, whose father is Lieut. Col. Arthur S. Dodgson, command chaplain at Stout field, is studying for the ministry. He was chosen a semi-finalist on the basis of the manuscript he submitted on the theme: “Should the Voting Age Be Lowered to 18?” Incidentally, he had the mumps when he was asked to make ‘a voice test and couldn’t go to station WISH. So the “mountain came to Mohammet.” The school recording machine was taken to his home and the recording made there by Robert Dunn, REIOHer pupil

y Raymond, Clapper

Likewise the ways and means committee divided and helped to make action impossible at this time. There was not enough leadership and adaptibility on both sides to find a common ground that would command a majority vote for some kind of bill. An issue which the war has made a pressing matter of sound home-front management has been politicalized. Now the aged chairman of the ways and means committee, tired, bitter, befuddled, is taking a vaca-

tion, It will be months before anything can be done.

Tampayers Willing but Confused

THAT MEANS A general state of confusion and The treasury is now launching the biggest war loan drive in our history. Yet nobody knows how much money will be taken out in a withholding tax before the year is over. How can anyone pledge himself to buy bonds up to the hilt when he doésn’t know how much money he will have after taxes? Nobody is complaining because taxes are high. But

the uncertainty at this late date is inexcusable. Tax-| _

payers are willing to pay, but Washington is unable to decide how and in what manner taxes shall be paid. So Washington throws up its hands end goes along operating in the second world war under the antiquated method instituted 30 years ago when we first began: the income tax and when only a handful .of millionaires were affected. Now 40 million people will pay income tax. Many will pay 20 per cent, 30 per cent, 40 per cent and 50 per cent of their earnings. But the treasury and the house ways and means committee can’t get together. _ That is close to incompetency. Members ought to get a new committee that could give them an acceptable bill regardless of the treasury and regardless of politics.

By Eleanor Romeuels

have been so simplified it takes only a short time for a man to learn his particular job. If he has a skill, he can often learn to adapt it. For instance, an apple boxer, whose work, of course, would be seasonal, was driving nails in grand old style in one particular operation. Fishermen, lumbermen, migratory farm labor, all of them find jobs available here. From such transient workers one Would not éxpect

the kind of spirit which evidently prevails. Everybody |

seems to be working ,and working hard. There was a Sense of speed WHE)! 1 Glen Wiss in whey fadiosies, So I asked what the labor policy was. told that a few supervisors had been carefully - for their leadership qualities and that the ‘worked as teams. While a man is working, he has a feeling of being necessary to his group and they have less absenteeism than some other factories. The hut itself, as used by our soldiers in Alaska, is made almost entirely of wood products. Packed in sections, it can be set up by five experienced soldiers in an eight-hour day. Insulated for a temperature of 35 below zero, it is g wind-resistant and easy to camouflage. The as duction produces a:

ron;

AI

By Ernie Pyle|

AFRICA FRONT,

Halians Definitely “Tired of War, Prisoners’ Attitude Shows.

. By RICHARD MOWRER Copyright, 1943, by The Indianapolis Times . and: The Chicago Daily News, Ine. WITH THE BRITISH 8TH ARMY, March 31 (Delayed). —The Italians’ morale is low, the Germans’ morale is “steady -and unshaken. Such is this correspon-

'dent’s opinion, based upon observa-

tion during the past 10 days’ fighting in southern Tunisia. Of the Italian forces, their artillery always has been and continues to be the elite, ..Most Italian officers are Fascists ‘and as such should be: fanatical - fighters yet, to this correspondent’s knowledge, there are:some who are no longer because they are convinced that the alliance with Germany is leading their country to ruin. : The bulk of Italian troops in Africa are, from the German point of view, undependable. They are definitely tired of the war.

Troops Are Exhausted

“So many mothers’ sons are being killed for that pig, Mussolini!” one Italian prisoner exclaimed to this correspondent a few hours after his capture. The most recent and impressive indication of the Italians’ low morale is the institution by the Ifalian high command of money prizes for the capture or destruction of allied equipment, planes, tanks and jeeps. The Italian command, furthermore, has deemed it worthwhile to circulate a questionnaire to commanding officers regarding the troops’ morale. From this questionnaire, it appears in the words of one report that “morale among our troops is unsatisfactory because of first, the recent withdrawal; second, physical exhaustion; third, length of service abroad; fourth, prolonged separation from families and no chance of making use of leaves; fifth, absolute lack of news of what is going on in the world.”

. Glad They're Out of War

When you go among a. group of newly captured Italians—not officers —and ask them if they are glad the war is over for them, they.assent with grins and vigorous nods. When you ask them where they are from, saying that you, yourself, were in Naples or Livorno once, they get enthusiastic and erowd around and shout, “Here’s somebody who was at Livorno, anybody here from Livorno?” and they grin and talk: it is the pleasantest rience have had in a long time to meet one of the enemy who has been in Livorno. Not so the Germans. They are still tough, silent and often sullen prisoners, who think that the Germans will win the battle ‘for Africa in the end—“It’s seesaw war in Af-

rica and soon we will be pushing]

you back again.” The German prisoners have developed a great respect for the British artillery, however. -Often the Germans say: “If we had had more guns and more planes, you wouldn't have taken us prisoner.”

CIGARETS ARE WAR BOOTY TWO TIMES

WITH THE BRITISH 8TH ARMY, March 29 (Delayed) (CDN). —-The New Zealand troops of the 8th army have already made a sort of preliminary contact with’ Lieut. Gen. George S. Patton’s Americans in Tunisia through the medium of quantities of American cigarets. The cigarets were captured from the Americans by the Germans when they made their big attack in February and took Kasserine. Then the same Germans, on March 6, attacked the 8th army at Medenine but did not get anywhere and lost 53 tanks. They lost, too, thousands of their captured American cigarets, which the New Zealanders are at present relishing.

NAVY URGES BOYS TO TAKE POSTERS

Admiration of every small boy for colored navy posters is relied upon

by the Indianapolis navy. recruiting

station to provide it’ with , badly. needed storerom space. “Come and get them,” is the, word Lieut. James Weber, officer in charge, sent out to the boys today after checking over hundreds of out-of-date but still attractive posters of the “Join the Navy and See the World” days and of more recent periods. : The navy recruiting station, with its poster surplus, is located on the| fourth floor of the Federal building.

HOLD EVERYTHING

oly line style of pro-| “FE tne pro-|

the or

.|ords as campus leaders have been

| copyright, 1943, by The Indianapolis

[that the time is near at hand,

WASHINGTON, April 5. —Behind the recent inauguration. of the

‘|army signal corps’ new radio-tele-

photo transmission service from North Africa, which permits battlefront news pictures to be printed in American newspapers a few hours after the action takes place, is a story of typical American inventive skill and ‘speed pitted against a seemingly impossible task. Now that remarkably clear photos from the war in Africa are being flashed across the ‘Atlantic, and with similar installations planned §

for other fighting fronts, tie story Bj

can be told. It represents the climax of many months of planning and testing by’ the signal corps and a young ci-’ vilian engineer, L. A. Thompson. Veteran Telephoto Man The designing and construction of the new radio-telephoto equipment were accomplished in the laboratories of Acme Newspictures, Inc. in Cleveland, O., where Thompson has been telephoto engineer for several years. Thompson already had designed and perfected the Acme Telephoto Trans-ceiver for two-way transmission over land wires—the system now used by the newsphoto agency’ —so he was assigned by the signal corps ‘to convert existing telephoto equipment to radio use. Military need for equipment: to reproduce facsimile diagrams and photographs was seen in December, 1941, by Brig. Gen. Frank E. Stoner, then signal officer of the 3d army, stationed at San Antonio, Tex. Gen. Stoner, Lieut. Col. Carl H. Hatch and Thompson carried out the project from its inception, developing equipment for military land-line transmission. under the direction of hief signal officer, Maj. Gen. son Olmstead..

Finest Detail Saved

Adaptation of equipment to transoceanie radio transmission .took two and half months of intensive laboratory research. During that time Thompson had not only designed but built the initial signal corps ma-

An Acme Newspictures telephoto trans-ceiver is shown above, at right, with the radio converter equipment being operated by Sergt. Paul Snyder. In establishing and testing the circuit between Washington and Africa, technicians used the action picture at right, of Jinx Falkenburg and her brother Tom playing tennis. It was transmitted back and forth across the Atlantic more than 100 times.

across the Atlantic without too much distortion from atmospheric and other disturbances. Signal. corps non-coms and com-

long experience as photo syndicate men in civil life, had to be trained in the special problems of -operating the delicately synchronized apparatus. 7 Minutes From Front

' Capt. Lawrence D. Prehn flew to Africa to install and test the equipment there. Three weeks of testing" were necessary to reach the quality which Army Pictorial service considered satisfactory. Certain types of photographic printing and developing were found . hecessary for the best transmission. A test picture was sent across the ocean more than 100 times—a print of Jinx Falkenburg playing tennis. At last the picture came through so clearly that it even showed the de-

chines which would send a picture

18, NAMED TO I. BOARD OF AEONS

Two From Indianapolis Honored as Campus Leaders .

Times Specidl BLOOMINGTON, Ind. April 5.—

Eight Indiaha university juniors and{ seniors who have outstanding rec-

named by President Herman B: Wells to the Board of Aeons, which serves as a connecting agency between the faculty and student bodies. The new members are Lewis Ferguson and Thomas Purkey of Indianapolis, ‘Palmer Singleton of Hammond, Milton Blick of Washington, D. C., Charles Mumaw of| Kokomo, Frank Kralis of LaPorte, Joseph Kutch of Gary, and Allan Rhodes of Owensboro, Ky. 3 ® 8 = Dr. Lee R. Norvelle, head of the division of speech of Indiana university, who was commissioned a lieutenant, senior grade, in the navy, was granted leave of absence

shipman’s school, Columbia university, to receive his active duty assignment. He is a veteran of the world war, having enlisted in the army the day after. the United States declared war. alae Mrs. Julia Lang Welborn of Evansville, who has been connected with the attendance department of the Bloomington city schools for three years, has been appointed assistant to Dr. Merrill T. Eaton, personnel director for the Indiana university school of education.

pest dispatch in the Basler Nachrichten reports that service for the late Premier Count Paul Teleki, who committed suicide two years ago, Hungarian capital Saturday, today and.will report to the mid-| tended by all the members of the government except “absent” Premier Nicholas von Kallay.

the Swiss correspondent is not trying to get through the strict Hungarian

von-Kallay is away on some secret mission. It was recently announced that the. Hungarian premier had been invited to Rome by Mussolini.

not discard the possibility that von Kallay, like King Boris of Bulgaria, may have been summoned to der fuehrer’s ii

tail of the racket strings. The

LONDON, April 5 (U. P.).—~Two thousand grateful parents have joined in setting up a memorial to perpetuate the name of Raimund ‘Draper, a young American pilot officer in the R.A. F., who took a

jdeath crash rather than risk the

lives of their children. Mr. Draper was born in London. ‘His mother lives in New York City. Mr. Draper's last effort was to

warn children in the yard of Horn

church school, in a northeastern London Suburb, so they'd get out of

the way of his faltering plane.

He had managed to hedge-hop a building: housing 500: pupils from

5 to 11 years old. Observers said it appeared to be a superhuman effort. Thery when he saw he couldnt

HUNGARY ‘PREMIER MAY BE ON ‘MISSION’

BERN, April 5 (CDN)—A Buda-

a memorial

‘was held in the at-

Observers here wonder whether

censorship, the news that

. Some observers here, however, do

Airman Who Saved Children Honored By Memorial

missioned ' officers, who have had oo

new-picture service was ready to launch. Photographs of the capture of Gafsa were sent by courier to the radio station, and put on a radio channel. Seven minutes later the negatives were being stripped off the machine in Washington for speedy printing and distribution to the newspapers. In future, the important news pictures and battle photographs taken by signal corps combat photographers will be rushed by plane or motor courier to the transmitting station for publication within

und

clear a second school uilding, he wiggled the wings to warn away 20 boys in a playing field between

them, and ‘then deliberately turned]

his plane into the yard. It exploded and he died. Friday, parents of the children, including those 1000 in the building he refused to try to hurdle, met in an hour-long memorial service and collected a fund for a Raimund Draper Memorial award. - The funds will be given annually to the boy and girl showing the qualities of “coolness, kindliness, unselfishness and general -helpfulness”—the same qualities which Schoolmaster Claud Lovett said Draper showed in his last moments of life.

Your Blood Is Needed

April quota for Red Cross Blood Plasma Center — 5400 donors. Donors so far this month— 354. Saturday’s quota—200. Saturday's donors—114, You can help meet the quota by calling LI-1441 for an appointment or going to the center, second floor, Chamber of Commerce building, N. Meridian st.

AERO CLUB TO HEAR AUSSIE

William Hubbard, Australia, and chief inspector for General Motors there, will be the guest of the Indianapolis Aero club at a dinner to be held in the Turner grille, Municipal airport, at 7 p. m. Tuesday. - C. O. Warnock will speak. Officers will

be elected.

a |Long- Range Plarining by U.S. Army Signal Corps 1 Brings, Radio- =Telephote Pictures From War Zone] 4

an hour or two, Use of one of the

vitally-needed military radio coms munication channels for this pur

pose is an example of the army's

anxiety to tell the public every-

thing possible "about our military operations. Additional signal corps radio

telephoto circuits will be established

to the other front as soon as pos sible. Two-way transmission of pictures is provided, and it will be possible to send news pictures to the front for distribution in camp publications. :

PUPILS TO HELP IN TIN SALVAGE

Four Days.

City and county school pupils have been invited by Mrs. Lowell S.

chairman, to take an active part in the next tin can collection, which will begin Monday, April 12, and continue through Thursday, April 15. Letters have been sent to each of the public schools in Indian= apolis asking for co-operation of the pupils. Each of the 91 parent teacher associations and many of the women’s clubs and large church groups have heard appeals from speakers assigned by the OCD, ° The Apartment Owners’ associae tion, under leadership of William P. Snethen; the Junior Chamber of Commerce salvage committee, of which James B. Clements is chair= man, and other organizations are co-operating with the mayor's coms mittee in this, the first collection since rationing rules were changed. City trucks will pick up the cleaned and flattened cans, which must be placed in receptacles cons taining no other material, from homes north of 16th st. on the first two collection days and from homes south of 16th st. on the last two days. This will be the first tin can collection in two months, and Mrs. Fisher hopes fo see the record of 156 tons, made in February, bets tered.

ENGLISH BIRTHS SET RECORD LONDON, April 5 (U. P.).—~Wars time England and Wales ‘recorded the highest birth rate in 14 years during the last three months of 1942, the registrar general reported

today.

The Rumors of Hostilities Between Russia and Japan This Spring Are No More Convincing Than in the Past

* (This is the sixth of a series of articles by A. T. Steele, who has just returned from the Far East.)

By A. T. STEELE

) Times and The Chicago Daily News, Inc.

Spring has come to Asia and with | €8

it the seasonal rumors of impending Japanese attack on the Soviet Upim, o0o They are the same old stories that turn up every spring, and this season’s crop sound no more convineing than those which 1bave gune before. | Russia and Japan may some day fin go fo war, but it’s hard to believe

doing it could knock Russia quickly

Japan joining hands and going down the garden path together at the expense of the Anglo-Chinese-American war effort in the Pacific.

Such conjectures can be given a semblance of reasonableness on the

basis of long-range power politics,

but they are dwarfed by a mass of| goq)

evidence, historical and otherwise; which show up Russia and Japan for what they are—rival powers separated by a wide, deep chasm of differences. ; them 3s convenient but shaky, like most temporary structures, . There is, perhaps, one thing that Sancevably bring Japan. That ls # of Russia, a ee into open oie a oi ms i the Veiiea States than ; ve visited.

Sei oa closer to year rust some sec lic, grows

I

1g moral ¢ es the col

The bridge that links

Mopac the mishostility. wapicion is dep many

Fisher, civilian defense tin salvage