Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 6 May 1943 — Page 15

| THURSDAY, MAY 6, 1943

Hoosier Vagabond

IN THE FRONT LINES BEFORE MATEUR—(By Wireless) —Aftet four days in battle, the famous infantry outfit that I'm with sat on its newly won hill and took twp days’ rest while companion units on each side of it leap-frogged ahead. The men dig ih on the back slope of the hill before any rest begins. Everybody digs in. This is an inviolate rule of the commanding officers and nobody wants to disobey it. Every time you pause, even if you think you're dying of weariness, you dig yourself a hole before you sit down. The startling thing to me about these rest periods is how quickly the human body can recuperate from critical exhaustion, how rapidly the human mind shaps back normal state of laughing, grousing, yarnpinning, and yearning for home. Here is what happens when a unit stops to rest. My unit stops just after daybreak on Hill 394. ‘oxholes are dug, outposts placed, phone wires strung n the ground. Some patrol work goes on as usual Then the men lie down and sleep till the blistering cat of the sun wakes them up.

‘Seems Like Christmas Eve’

THAT FIRST evening is when life begins to seem ke Christmas eve. The mail comes up in jeeps just before dark. Then comes the men's blanket At dark hot food arrives—the first hot food 1 four davs This food is cooked in miles back and brought up by containers, to the foot of the hill Hot food and hot coffee put life in a man, in a pathetic kind contentment, you and you sleep. Hot food arrives again in the morning, before daylight.

to the

clls

rolling kitchens several jeep, in big thermos

and

then of lie

down

Inside Indianapolis By Lowell Nussbaum

the state entomologist and the fellow who kihows more about Indiana's fish than the fish know about themselves, says any fishermen who moan about having to give up the sport beof ga rationing are silly. Why, says Frank, there more bass in White river from Broad Ripple down to the vicinity of Butler university than anywhere else in the state. The only trouble with them {is that they're ‘night biters.” They usually pass up the most tempting bait in the daytinte, probably because they get fill of erawdads, which abound in the river in that area. But at night, the fishing's better. Frank advises using surface bait and a black plug A reader writes in to call our attention to the fact an Indianapolis service man, Dick Eggleston, won $30 on the Dr. I. Q. prograin Monday night.

A “Cheep” Imitation

A CERTAIN street tv Y ides the E.

FRANK WALLACE,

cause soline

are

theit

operator who freas a passenger (to rom work) is te an accomplished imitator. imitating a boxful of baby chicks, es a passenger carrying a large packimitation , and you ought to see the r passengers look around for the chicks. It's lots of fun, (.. Seven women operators joined the street railway’s force this week, bringing the total of women operators e, with two more still in training. Utility officials would like to start mote women in training. They say it isn't as difficult to drive one the busses as it appears. Incidentally, the feminine operators ha ched from skirts to slacks. They made the ch because the skirts had a tendency to hike up over their khees while they were

railway 10th st. line quit bv i spever he se he does his

of < ve sWit

nee

French Politics

8.-—Gen. Charles de Gaulle, Fichting French leader, has reported in London that ey erything is now in readiness for his long-delayed meeting with Gen. Henri Honore Giraud ih North Africa. But there are strong indications that politics may still block French unity. Gen. Giraud has said that he, too, is ready any time. But, whereas he suggests that the conference take place in some quiet corner, Gen. de Gaulle insists on holding it in the teeming port of Algiers, To outsiders this may seem like the difference betwen tweedledum and tweedledee. In reality, however, it is of the very essence of the whole tragic business, A tiny dispatch from Algiers, which only a few newspapers carried, provides a clue, Dated May 2, it told how a crowd of “several thousand persons” had gathered in the middle of town, sung the communist “Interand shouted “We want de Gaulle!” In the last French elections, under the impetus of the popular front, the socialists, radical socialists and communists rolled up the biggest bloe in the French chamber of deputies. The Communists alone won 73

seats.

Giraud Puts War First

THEIR PARTY was dissolved after the pact between Russia and Germany in 1939, and some party members were arrested. Others fled the country or went {nto hiding. Today many, if not a ma jority, of them are in Algeria. So are other Communists from France, Spain and elsewhere in Europe. They are highly organizec, being about the only french group just now that is* And they can be counted on to stage marches through the streets popular demonstrations like that of May 2. or respond to any call at any time Tt should not be hard to understand, therefore, why Gen. de Gaulle wants the conference to take

My Day

WASHINGTON, Wednesday. — tate yesjerday noon I spoke at one of the meetings of a group members of the Massachusetts Institute of Techwho are now in Washington. With their they filled the hall at the Y. WwW. C. A. { was glad to have this oppora he tunity to tell them something of my trip to Great Britain. It was particularly gratifying to find that many of those who had been in Great Britain on missions with the armed forces, seemed to have similar impressions and to agree with my conclusions. Before leaving for the meeting, t had tea with the president and Mme. Chiang and reached home again In time to greet our few dinner guests. Among them were some sevspapernien from Australia on their way to Great

Ww ACHING TON May

ak a

onale,’

logy,

friends,

By Ernie Pyle

Word is pasced that mail will be collected that evening, so the boys sit on the ground and write letters. But writing is hard, for they can't tell in their letters what they've just been through. The men put water in their steel helmets and wash and shave for the first time in days. A two-months-old batch of copies of the magazine Yank arrives, and a two-weeks-old bunch of the Stars and Stripes. Soldiers cut each other's hair. It doesn’t matter how it looks, for they aren't going anywhere fancy, anyhow.

Marching Orders Once More

I SIT AROUND with them, telling stories, battle, “We always get it the toughest,” they say. “This is our third big battle now since coming to Africa. The Jerry is really afraid of us now. He khows what outfit we are, and he doesn't like us.” Thus . they of fear. Evening draws down. Then the word passed around. Orders have come by telephone. There is no excitement. no grouching, no eager- | ness either. They had expected it Quietly they roll their packs, their rifles and fall into line, There is not a sound as they move like wraiths in single file down tortuous gecat paths, walking slowly, feeling the ground with their toes, stumbling] and hushfully cussing. They will walk all night and, attack before dawn. They move like ghosts. You don't hear or ey them three feet away. Now and then a light flashes lividly from a blast by our big guns, and then for just an instant you see a long slow line of darkhelmeted forms silhouetted in the flash. Then darkness and silence consume them again, and somehow you are terribly moved.

and they

is

strap them on, lift

using the brake and clutch, and that had a tendency to distract their attention from their driving.

Around the Town

A TRIP out of town indicates motorists generally are disregarding the 335-mile speed limit. At 35 miles | an hour there's a steady zip-zip of cars passing you as though you were standing still. At 50 miles an | hour vou can keep up with most. The average speed | probably is a shade under 30. At least, that was our experience Many places selling candy have been | rationing chocolates—only one pound a day to a customer. That's because of the Mother's Day rush.’ Don't forget the date. It's next Sunday . There are enough dandelions in the world war memorial | plaza, opposite the Scottish Rite cathedral, to provide | greens for a couple of regiments... . Governor Schrick- | er had better look after his fences. On of our agents] reports a whole section of the fence around the man. | sion lay in the street this morning. Probably a hit- i skip victim.

Fewer Patients

INSTEAD OF being overcrowded as in the past! the Riley hospital for erippled children has been | having many empty beds in recent months. The hos- | pital has about 275 beds, but its patient population | has been averaging only about 190. Hospital officials | are unable to account for the falling off in patronage | other than the improved economic status of the pub-| lic. The hospital accepts only charity cases (passed | on by circuit court) and the assumption is that par-| ents of many crippled children now are able to pay | for the youngsters’ hospitalization in the home towns. . A. M. Henson, executive director of Georgia's wh | employment compensation bureau, is here this week | studying Indiana's employment security division. He | avs he was told in Washington that Indiana's system is “the best in the country.”

By Wm. Philip Simms

place in Algiers. He also wants the Algerian consul general—which gives him its backing—to sit in. He is confident his political backing is stronger than that of Gen. Giraud, and naturally he would like a] chance to demonstrate it. | Gen. Giraud, on the other hand, puts the war] first and politics second. He seeks an ‘inderstanding with Gen, de Gaulle on that basis. After the Ger-| mans are licked, the people of France—the whole| 40,000,000 of them—can elect their own leaders.

De Gaulle Plays Politics

MEANWHILE MARCHING, shouting, perhaps clashing throngs behind the erucial battle lines of] North Africa would do far more harm than good. It was to avoid just such a situation that the British and American authorities in North Africa, Lindon and Washington unanimously agreed to the suggestion of some weeks ago that the de Gaulle-Giraud meeting be postponed. A somewhat similar difference of opinion, divides) the de Gaullists and Giraudists with regard to met- | ropolitan France. Gen. de Gaulle wants a political regime set up in each department of France as, ohe | by one, they are liberated | Gen. Giraud believeg it would be sounder practice] to leave the military temporarily in control in col-| laboration with the local eivil authorities Like it or not, the military will be forced to maintain order, health, food, transportation, communica- | tions and other services behind the lines until Hitler! is licked. And too much division of authority would | add to, rather than diminish, the initial chaos. There will be ample time for politics after the armistice. As this is written, therefore, there appears to remain a considerable difference of opinion between the factions. Fundamentally, it seems to boil down to this: Gen. Giraud wants to concentrate on winning the war. Period. Gen. de Gaulle also wants to win the war, of course, but at the same time he intends to build up his political machine as he goés along.

Mr. Clapper's dispatches from Sweden will be resumed tomorrow,

By Eleanor Roosevelt

ne the Battie of the Bismarck sea, in which Ausfreien and American fliers took part and set such a arkable record for air attack on naval forces. The er was a picture of the fighting in New Guinea, ahd the help which the natives have given the soldiers, both Americans and Australians. It i& the natives who act as stretcher bearers and carry the wounded over rough paths for six days to the nearest hospital at Port Moresby. When the rain comes, it seems to come in sheets and they must be soaked through. In fact, I can think of nothing jore trying than thie trip for wounded men. It must be agonizing for them, but they speak with praise of the gentleness of the native bearers and the kindness with which they treat them. There has just come to my desk a plan which was originated and started by the Kiwanis club of Bethlehem. Pa. some vears ago. They call it the Junior Councillors Bethlehem Plan. I understand that the National Council of Women . hoping to spread it throughout the nation in the fight delir by and as a essful

get to both funny and serious, about their

talk and boast and laugh and speak

| mortar | pounds or

| shot”

Jean st ie

Memories of the Siege During Civil War Still Live in Historic Vicksburg

Orleans, written by a special writer for this newspaper who recently made the 1500-mile trip oh the Steamer Gordon C. Greene.)

By ROBERT TALLEY

Times

bluffs,

Special

VICKSBURG TO NATCHEZ. historic old Vicksburg today looks out across the dis-

Writer Perched on her high

tance at the mighty river that has gone away and left her.

When Grant's gunboats thundered their rain of fire on the besieged Confederate city for 48 terrible days in the summer of 1863,

Thirteen years later,

| the winding Mississippi swept directly past her old cobble-stoned levee in one of its capricious whims,

the Big river

ghawed a new channel across the narrow neck of a long bend and

| now it passes just above the town.

Vicksburg proper is today on a

narrow canal, marking the old river bed, through which government engineers have diverted the flow of the Yazop whose old mouth was

several miles upstream,

As the Steamer Gorgon Greene swung into the canal and nosed to a landing at the eity’ ‘s old waterfront, there was one man aboard to whom the scene meant much. He was Capt. William Dugan, a pilot

oh the Gordon Greene, whose grandfather, Capt. was killed on the river before Vicksburg while he was serving on one

| of Grant's

attacking gunboats, Friends sent home a box containing his personal effects, but his body was never found. It was dusk when Gordon Greene's passengers climbed the steep streets of the high-hilled old town that had been the Gipraltar of the Confederacy. The tall white Warren countv court house that had withstood the siege in 1883 stood out against the twilight sky still breathing defiance after 80 years. The shelpitted old edifice seemed to symbolize the spirit of a town that successfully resisted the foree of arms but at last surrendered to the pangs of hunger and slow starvation

Lived in Caves

THE OLD battlefield that ringed the town in those days is now a national military park, blooming with fresh flowers and the long rows of white headstones that mark the graves of its 17,000 dead, 13.000 of whom are unidentified. The time-crusted cannon, the statues of men on horseback, the gleaming white memorials tell the story of what happened there. You get Vicksburg's real story, however, not from the heroic monuments or from the history books, but from the grandsons and granddaughters of its eitizens who huddled in caves ahd lived on mule meat and jaybirds during Grant’s thundering siege with which he broke the backbone of the Confederacy in the Mississippi valley. They will tell you how the Yankee gunboats rained as many as 80.000 shells on the town in a single day, the sereaming missiles traveling through the heavens like swiftly moving stars as their sputtering fuses trailed streaks of fire. Of the bombshells from the boats that contained 300 gunpowder, and tore craters in the streets when they fell. Of the broken bits of iron, rocks and glass that came in the storms of cannister; of the “chain (cannon balls linked in deadly union on an iron chain) that swept the streets from curb to eurbh. A favorite is the story of the little girl and her mother whe were huddled in a cave, with scores of others, during one of the darkest days. “Don't fear, honey; God will protect us,” assured the mother. “But Mama,” sobbed the terrified child, “maybe God's been killed, too! They tell the story, old man—a certain Mr,

”

too, of an Miller—

| whose long whiskers were shot off

by a Yankee cannonball. He ventured from his cave during a lull in the bombardment one day, got caught in a new barrage, and

William Richardson,

the cannonball trimmed his beard as he was running for cover, » » ”

The Headless Horseman

OLD DR. LORD, rector of Christ Episcopal church, used to tell a story, they say, of a soldier who was killed by a cannoball. The victim, an orderly, stood holding a Confederate officer's horse on the main street of the city. As the minister watched him, admiring his erect and soldierly bearing, the ball struck the orderly’s head from his shoulders and left the headless trunk still holding the reins and standing erect and as soldier-like as when alive. The noiseless cannonball had so quietly done its work that the horse took no alarm. but stood as still as the corpse that held it. Then, sageing, the headless body sank to the ground. They tell, too, of & mother whose three-vear-old son had left their cave during a lull in the firing and was playing in a field of daisies in the sunshine. Suddenly, Grant's guns began to roar, but the child, accustomed to the sound, took no heed of the danger. Ag his mother rushed from the cave to rescue him, the boy playfully started to run, but tripped on a stone and fell. A fragment from an exploding shell tore off his mother’s outstretched hand with which she had reached for her baby. She refused to call the loss of her hand a misfortune because, as she explained, if she had succeeded in taking hold of her child he surely would have been killed. For 48 days Grant gave Vicksburg “the works,” as he locked his army around the eity like a vice on three sides and blasted it from the river with his gunboats on the fourth. Then, on July 4 1863, the starving city surrendered. The war rolled on for nearly two years more, but as far as the Mississippi valley was concerned it enfied that day, because the fall of Vicksburg gave the Federals control of the river from Cairo to New Orleans and split the Confederacy in half. The people of Vicksburg will tell you that Grant, though a determined conqueror, was a kindly one. One of his first acts upon entering the starving city was to order in wegon-trains of Federal army rations. Upon this food the hungry residents, who had subsisted for weeks on a diet of mule meat and were even faced with the grim prospect of eating dogs and cats, feasted as the guests of their eonquerors, £ = »

A 1500-Mile Race

THE GORDON GREENE left Vicksburg about 9 p. m. and at a party in the big cabin aboard the boat that night Capt. Tom Greene,

haa. SHY

Historie old Vicksburg still etands upon lis high ill, - the y HVOF | from which Gen. Grant's gunboats thundered at it in 1863 has carved a new channel and gone off and left it. The city Is now on a diversion

canal, through which the Yazoo river empties into the Mississippi.

The center building with the tall tower

in the picture above is the old Warren county courthouse which withstood the siege,

During the 48-day siege, Vieksburg's residents lived In caves to

escape the Federals’ bursting shells,

as shown by this old print. Toward

the last, the only food of many was mule meat that sold for $5 a pound

(Confederate money),

her skipper, told his passengers of the historic race between the Natchez and the Robt, E. Lee in 1870. Their race course was the longest in the nation’s history— 1500 winding miles between St. Louis and New Orleans—and more than $1.000000 was bet on the outcome. Even though the Natchez lost by six hours, said Captain Greene, she was the better boat. She stopped at numerous points along the river to make her mail landings and also paused to take on fuel, whereas the Lee made no stops at all and obtained her wood from barges that were brought alongside, emptied and then cast off. “Capt. John W. Cannon of the Lee made every preparation,’ related Captain Greene, “He stripped his boat of stage, derrick and spars and tore out both ends of the cabin to lessen the resistance to the wind. Mark Twain said he even decided to go without his gloves and shave off his whiskers to lighten the load, but he really did not put on his stove-pipe hat during the whole race. There is also a story that he ordered his crew to keep their quids of tobacco in the middle of their mouths so they wouldn't throw the boat off balance, but personally I rather doubt that” After 75 years, there igs still a Natchez and a Robert BE. Lee on the river. The Natchez of today ie one of the Federal Barge Line's powerful towboats that passed \ us,

(CHURCH TO BURN | MORTGAGE SUNDAY

McCORDSVILLE, Ind, May a A mortgage burning ceremon N scheduled for 2 p. m. Sunday at ‘the| MeCordsville Methodist

will speak. The $35,000 church was dedicated | in September, 1022

Recently the interior has been coms | pletely redecorated. All decorating costs and debts have been met. The program Sunday will inelude church school at 9:30 a. m.; worship | services and the dedication of new nymnals at 10:30 a. m. by Dr. V. Ls Clear, district superintendent, and a basket dinner at noon.

Your Blood Is Needed

May quota for Red Oross Blood Plasma Oenter « 5800 donors. Donors so far this monthes

582. Yesterday's quota-<200, Yesterday's donors-=196, | You can help meet the quota | by calling LI<1441 for pointment of to center, second or: Oba of Commerce i

natl, the father of Former Mayor George P. Carrel of that city, who was one of our passengers. The big steamer’s boilers blew up at Grand Gulf on the night of Jan. 14, 1852, and the resultant fire claimed a heavy toll of lives as she burned to the water's edge. By a tragie coincidence, the Steamer Martha Washington was

destroved on the same night and at almost the same hour as the George Washington. Hundreds of miles up the river, near Island 65, the Martha Washington took fire. in three minutes she was blazing from end to end. As the Gordon Greene steamed aroind the sweeping bends that give the Mississippi its winding course-—bends which the Big River changes with its capricious whims —{t was easy to understand why many old river towns that Mark Twain knew are now far back in the cotton fields, and why the sites of others are buried in the pound upstream, near Vieksburg; the vessel that proudly carries the name of Robert BE. Lee now is a chuffing little ferry boat that shuttles busily between two landings on the Ohio river, Some distance below Vicksburg, on the silent moonslit river, we passed Grand Gulf, Miss, whose dangerous whirlpools, caused by the current racing swiftly around the lower end of Hard Times Bend, proved a death-trap for many steamboats in the old days, The thin boilers of old river queens also exploded there as

BOYS NEEDED FOR

DETASSELING CORN

chureh. | lage boys will be available in the Gen. Bishop Titus Lowe of Indianapolis ext fow weeks, according to Miss| vealed that the youngest general Brig. Gen,

Aletha Pettijohn, manager of the

Its original U. 8 employment service, with the 14 vietims. mortgage was approximately $15,000. first job reported to the service that was Andrews’ chief of «staff, ———————

| HOLD EVERYTHING

of corn detasseling. Boys 14 years of age and older, who are at least five feet four inches tall will be hired. One ems ployer is interviewing today from

8:30 a. m. to 7 p. m. at the employ«

ment office, 148 EB. Market st. Those who sign up now will be

0 HE Car iy and Aug. 1.

their captains ordered more steam to battle the powerful current, ¥ 4 # ONE OF THESE wrecks was the George Washington, owned by Capt. Hercules Carrel of Cineine river's bed. The river has switohed towns from one bank to anothet, and done many other equally erratic things, Vicksburg and the land opposite it are entirely in Mississippi, bul an island in the city's harbor i8 Louisiana territory because it was the point of a long peninsula from Louisiana that was cut off from the mainland when the riveg gnawed a channel across the bend in 1876. Vicksburg is “dry” bud legal liquor can be had on a sae

|

loon boat moored at the island in

the The

harbor because island is Louisiana soil, chuffing little ferryboat serves the saloon boat does a brisk business among the thirsty. The little town of Delta, Miss, which used to be three miles be« low Vicksburg, suddenly found ite self two miles above Vicksburg as the result of the change in the channel. A

the city's

sirable portion of’ Claiborne county, Mississippi, thas

that

lies within Hard Times Bend, hag

been shifted from the east side of the river to the west side of the rivet by reason of the Yucatan Cutoff across the narrow neck of the bend. The tiny landing of Hopeless, La, on Hard Times Bend, is now several miles inland from the main river «= which causes one to suspect that the pioneers who named the little town many years ago must have been gifted with rare foresight, ® nn

Josie Harry's Monument

THE RIVER'S islands, most of which are numbered in sequence from Cairo down, come and go with the whims of the mighty current, In Memphis’ onee«hroad harbor, the river, defying the best efforts of the Covernmenst engineers, has piled up a large island--Mud island-=which has practically shoved Memphis off the Mississippi and on to the ine tervening Wolf river. Such is« lands often form as the current piles up mud against snags, steamboat wrecks and other obe struetions, and grow larger with each high water, Eventually they may spread over hundreds of acres, A classic, as the old rivermen tell it, is the story of large tows head, or baby island, just below Memphis. Many years ago, Capt. Milt Harry, wishing to honor the memory of his wife, built a big steamboat and christs ened it with her name, Soon thereafter, the Josie Harry was sunk and it seemed that the caps tain's efforts to memorialize his wife had been lost, But the big river figured differently; on the wave-smashed wreck of the Josie Harry it built a tiny sandbar and | then, by degrees, it added first tons and then acres of silt, Today, Josie Harry at the head of Cow Island Bend, is a pile wide and nearly a mile long. The big river has given Capt. Milt Harry's wife an ens during memorial, wheres man failed,

NEXT=From Natohes Orleans,

to New

| vounaesT GENERAL DIED WITH ANDREWS

Josie Harry, |

Towhead, '

|

|

WASHINGTON, May 68 (U, P.) we The complete casualty list of the Farm employment for high school Teeland airplane crash in which Li

Frank M. Andrews

officer in the army{Charles H. Barth--was among the The 30-year-old Barth

died ree