Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 20 May 1943 — Page 15

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Hoosier Vagabond

IN TUNISIA—(By Wireless). —The finish of a campaign such as this one in Tunisia has a definite reaction on everybody. At first there is terrific enthusiasm. Then after a few days a letdown occurs. Everybody realizes, once he relaxes, how terribly tired he is. He is like a rubber band that has been stretched too tight. A feeling of anticlimax settles over him. Dozens of times I've heard such expressions as “I'm all jumpy” and “I feel at loose ends” and “I want to get moving, I dont care where, but somewhere.” Staying in Tunisia now is like sitting on in the tent after the circus has finished its performance. Everybody is wondering what we are going to do next, and when. and where. Of course the Germans would like to know that too. And I can assure you that if they don’t know any more about our plans than the correspondents and the bulk of the army, they are completely in the dark. We in the common herd have no inkling of what _ next act will be. We can only hope it will be on, for this feeling of intermission is getting us down.

May “Feed Pigeons in Rome”

AS FOR me, I don't know what I'll do either. First, I'm going back into Algeria and take a bath and get some laundry done and read a few letters. Then I'll sit down for a couple of weeks of column-writing in peaceful surroundings. You'll have to bear up under a few more Tunisian columns, for I have a Jot of leftover items to put on paper. What comes after that is anybody's guess. I might go back to England for a while. I might take a Cook's tour of South Africa. I might even take a Mediterranean cruise or feed the pigeons at St Peters in Rome, who knows?

By Ernie Pyle!

The Germans didn't quite hew to the ethical line in one thing—they continued trying to destroy their own stuff after the surrender. Vehicles were set afire, and soldiers broke their rifles over bridge abutments as they walked along. Sometimes their destructive frenzy was almost laughable. I saw one bivouack where they had left

all their big guns, their 10-wheelers, all their heavy |

gear intact, yet they had smashed such things as

personal! radios, toilet kits, chairs, and even an accordion.

Hoosier Windmill Still There

HOWEVER, WHAT they put out of action was trivial. The collapse was so huge that most of their stuff was taken intact. Today you see long convoys of German trucks on the Tunisian highways, but they have American drivers, and the yellow star of the U. S. army is painted on their sides. Our military police acted quickly to throw guards around all captured supply dumps and preserve them until the army can collect, sort, and put to use all the captured material.

A little scene on the day of the surrender sticks in my mind. Hundreds of Germans were standing

and sitting around a Tunisian farmyard. There was a sprinkling of Italian prisoners too, and a scattering] of American, British and French soldiers on various’ errands. It was indeed an international assembly. In this far foreign farmyard there was a windmill. The printing on the windmill's big fan seemed so incongruous that I had to jot it down, for it said] “Flint & Walling Manufacturing Co., Kendallville, Ind.” You ‘just can't get foreign enough to lose us! Hoosiers. One of the English-speaking German soldiers asked me why I was copying.that down, and when I toid him it was because the windmill came from, my home state he smiled and said oh yes, he'd been in Indiana several times himself!

Inside Indianapolis By Lowell Nussbaum) ~~ == assistant who saw the chute called a woman + California S

WE TRIED to keep off the subject of the flood in this column, just to be different, but we didnt have a chance. That's what everybody's talking about. So: The favorite joke of drowned-out victory gardeners is: «Guess when I replant, I'll sow watercress, or rice.” . Crawford Mott, the realtor, was up at 2 a. m. the other moming removing carpeting and furniture from the path of rising water at his home, 1820 E. 73th st. Upstairs, he heard the family maid noaning: “Oh, all my spring housecleaning gone to waste.” . .. A certain business man who won't let us use his name found his victory garden inundated, so he dug a trench a foot deep from the garden to the street—a distance of 70 feet. That drained the water, but next morning he found about half his tomato and cabbage plants, other vegetables, too, out in the street along with the water. . , . All over town where there was high water, folks were busy catching monstrous carp, some using nets, others pitchforks, and 7281 others grabbing them with their hands. The cccupant of a house just north of the Riviera club speared, some dandies in Illinois st. in front of his house with a pitchfork. Bobbie and Dickie Dickinson ms of George Dickinson of Central Rubber, used & string. bent hook and worm to catch a 15-inch carp

in a tiny creek, normally dry, out in Syivan Estates.

Qround the Town

A. KENELM COX. auditor of Methodist hospital, is back on the job of being auditor after patronizing his own hospital as a patient. He had an ear infection. . .~ Also back on the job is John H. Klinger of the state welfare department. He's been ill several weeks with gall bladder trouble, . . . Clarence A. Jackson, state C. of C. executive vice president, has been on the sick list several days but expects to be back at his office in a day or two. . . . A small red cellophane parachute which floated down to Virginia ave. from a window of the Indiana Trust building Monday caused a flurry of excitement. A dentist's

Sweden

STOCKHOLM, May 20 (By Wireless).—Some stories about bomb nerves are beginning to come out of Germany by word of mouth, although those here who have the best information about Germany find very little sign of a breaking morale as yet. The story of workmen being executed for refusing to go back to work in Essen may be doubted. Certainly if it is true it is only an isolated instance, and as yet not typical. The first reaction of a population under bombing is to become angry and more solidified, more determined to stick it out. After a long time the bombing wears them down, and then nerves and loss of sleep and anxiety begin to \ tell. That stage has not yet arrived in Germany. One big Ruhr industrialist keeps his family, including small children, in that hotly bombed area. sending them into a deep shelterievery night. He was asked by a Swedish friend why he did not get his family out of the dangerous target area. He replied that it would destroy the morale ©f his workmen if he moved his family from danger hile their families had to remain. As an indication of the shape of things to come, gome members of the Berlin diplomatic corps are sending valuable personal belongings back home and taking furnished apartments, as a precaution against the heavy blitz that is foreseen.

Give Nazis at Least One More Year AS YOU WOULD EXPECT if men were irying to tell you what they really think, and not parroting 2 propaganda line, people here who are well informed

about Germany differ somewhat in their judgments about Germany's staying power. It is something like trying to size up an election when the best judges differ as to what will happen. Yet the underlying

My Day

WASHINGTON, Weanesday.—It was most interesting to see the defense housing yesterday at Arlingf ion Farms, Va. These are temporary buildings but they are made out of a new material, “cemesto,” which is waterproof, fireproof and moderately soundproof. It is less than iwo inches thick and made from waste material of sugar cane. The girls told me that if they kept their radics on very loud or made much noise in their rooms, their neighbors heard them but for ordinary daily existence, this building material is very successful for inside and outside use. At the end of every corridor there is a bricked-in stairway as a fire safeguard, and the girls toid me that they hold regular

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happens to be an air raid warden. The warden took a look at the chute, then called a policeman to help her examine it. Careful probing revealed no evidence of anything out of the way, so everybody went back to work. Personal Service A CERTAIN trolley operator on the S. Meridian st. line is very accommodating to his passengers. One of our agents forgot the street where he wanted to disembark and so he told the operator he wanted | to get to 932 S. Meridian. “Oh,” answered the driver politely. “The rationing board. Get off at Ray st. Then back up the street about a half-block on the west side of the street.” Just then a little old lady sitting on a front seat said: “I want to go to a place down here where they buy and sell poultry.” Without batting an eye, he replied: “Get off at Wilkins st. and go right across the street.” . . . Winner of a suggestion contest which ended Saturday at RCA will receive a trip to Mobile, Ala., for a ship launching.

Luck—Good and Bad

JANE OVERSTREET, employed in the CurtissWright metallurgical department, won $500 at a bank night at Greenfield the other evening, her associates report, and then borrowed a quarter for lunch the next day. The $500 is going into war bonds where it belongs, we're told. . . . And then there's Andy Olosson, new assistant in the Curtiss-Wright public relations department. Andy's luck has been bad. He started to work here several weeks ago but managed to find a youse and move his family here from Bloomington only last week. Tuesday afternoon flood waters approached his house, on E. 67th st, so for safety he bundled the family into his car and took them to his in-laws in Kokomo. He got back home late that night and couldn't get within a quarter-mile of the house because of the water. So he went downtown where he was unable to find an available hotel room. Then he discovered he'd snapped his car doors locked with the car keys inside. He couldn't find anyone to open the door at 2 a. m. so he just spent the rest of the night sitting up in the bus station.

By Raymond Clapper

judgments about Germany are in surprisingly close accord. For instance, one evening at dinner, in separate conversations I asked one of the leading military men of Sweden and one of the most prominent bankers their best guesses on Germany's staying power. Each said not less than about another year, and not beyond the end of next year. I think almost every conversation I have had with dozens of the most important and best informed persons in Sweden, many of whom are frequently in Germany and all of whom have excellent contacts there, places the end of the war within those limits. Only a few have said the end might come this year. All agree that Germany will be defeated.

Hitler Group Kidding Selves

ONE OF the most important Swedes, who is in Germany often and who sees many Germans coming here on trumped-up business trips—which are really excuses to get out of Germany in order to breathe some fresh air, as they put it to him—differs from the usual judgment that Hitler knows he is licked. He says the German industrialists know it, but that Hitler and his small group—Ribbentrop, Himmler and so on—are still kidding themselves. He says that is why no separate peace is possible with Russia, as Hitler won't consider any terms that Stalin would listen to. He says Hitler and Himmler have the country in their grip. and that unless something happens to Hitler the war will go on until Germany is crushed by military force, even though the industrialists and many others know the fight is hopeless. One leading Swedish military man says Germany's airplane losses are far exceeding production. Also heavy losses of spare parts and machines in Russia are giving Germany a desperate maintenance situation. Also there is a shortage of fuel He says the loss of many planes on the ground in Tunisia was a heavy blow, and that it will not be possible for Germany to recover ascendancy in the air hereafter.

By Eleanor Roosevelt

infirmary is included in the rent which they pay. The bedrooms looked very attractive. For a single room the cost is $24.50 a month, but the double room can bring that cost down to as low as $16.50 a month, though, for the choice ones, it goes up to the same price as the single rocms. The cafeteria is quite a little walk from the finished dormitory, “Idaho hall.” After leaving there, I saw another defense housing project for Negro girls, called “Langston hall.” Here there will be two buildings, called “Midway” and “Wake.” The plan is exacily the same as in Arlington and the building material used is the same. It was built by a Negro contractor, Mr. Plato, who has built many postoffices and government buildings in the past. : I returned home a little later than I had expected, but this household takes on some of the attributes

of the prime minister's day while he is here, and he ores fo Soil Rohn 32 us fr wore prosiabis

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Safety measures are not relaxed, though railroad volume is multiplied. Above, a mechanic inspects a passenger car journal for defects,

New Plants Add Burden

One of the biggest ingredients of success in war is transportation. Trained soldiers, newly forged weapons, stacks of ammunition and food are useless until they are moved and moved again to points where they are needed. Charles Lucey, who wrote “Smashing the Axis,” the description of industry at war, reveals in a new series, of which this article is the fourth, how the railroads are rolling the nation to victory.

By CHARLES T. LUCEY, Times Special Writer LOS ANGELES, May 20.—One of the hot spots in United States railroading is a simple, oblong room in the Southern Pacific offices well above the rumble of downtown Los Angeles traffic. From it, day and night. comes the hum of men talking earnestly into telephone transmitters hung before them at big desks. Here are transportation’s triggermen— the dispatchers. Lord of 50 or 60 miles of track, the dispatcher it is whose wizardry directs perhaps a dozen trains running on the same line and varying speeds and in opposite directions. He must know every grade and curve on his line, every engine and every engineer. Decisions come fast and there's no margin for error. No. 97 freight must go “in the hole”"— into a siding—while a fast express is pushed through: No. 23 passenger train must hold up for a troop train; No. 9 northbound freight has time to make the next siding before going into the hole to let a southbound freight pass. ® = &

Dispatchers Alert

INDIFFERENT WORK, here could clog the war job. Never has there been such a crush on the tracks these dispatchers run in this critical west coast area. But they've taken the load and carried it. That's typical of the job being done today by the S. P, the Union Pacific, Santa Fe and Western Pacific in rolling millions of tons of vital freight into airplane plants, shipyards and embarkation ports and in handling troop movements in great volume. Two major changes, both grown largely out of the war, have thrown this unprecedented burden on California railroads. First, virtual closing of the Panama canal to all save military and naval movements shifted water-borne traffic to rail axles. Second, California, once largely agricultural, is today heavily industrial. The big job of Western railroads always has keen to roll trainloads of “reefers”—refrigerator cars—East. This they still do, but now they must haul tremendous war cargoes back to booming war industries. Intricate railroad operating problems are involved.

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Meet War Emergencies

VIRTUAL MAGIC is demanded —and produced —day after day. Not long ago a San Francisco shipyard vice president telephoned the Santa Fe. The supply of oxygen (for welding) was so low, he said, that if new shipments weren't available quickly some yards would be closed in 48 hours. Already, he said, orders had been given to curtail its use. Oxygen was rolling on the Santa Fe lines west out of Chicago. An S. 0. S. went out. Cars were picked out of trains at Topeka, Amarillo and other points, rolled westward at top speed and moved in a special train up the San Joaquin Valley. The shipyards worked on. en a day, along the Santa

Women replace men in many railroad maintenance tasks.

Here

Mrs. Ida Edwards fills a locomotive’s hydrostatic lubricator in a West

coast. shop.

town will learn at 9 a. m. that he's supposed to feed 300 troops at 11:30. He scours the town for food, sends out a hurry call for housewives who come in (at $1.50 each) to serve hungry soldiers. He feeds them, mops his brow, waves them goodby. There's not room in diners for all who travel. Railrcads fill in by serving sandwiches. A single Santa Fe Chicago-Los Angeles trip may use 4000. Lounge cars are rare, and getting liquor aboard train is increasingly a trick in the west. = 8 ”

Workers Miss Meals

THE “BOOMERS” are back— rolling stone train crewmen with an aversion to settling down. Railroads are glad to grab them. Trainmen’s working rules specify when men may eat. But many a crew is ignoring rules, missing meal time, to push important war cargo on to destination. The caboose—“crummy” to railroaders—was a sort of private car for crewmen; it often followed crews rather than trains and changed five times between Los Angeles and Salt Lake City. Now one rolls all the way. There has been some congestion at coast ports, but it has been minor compared with the terrific jams of world war I on the east coast. And with shippers and rails co-operating it has been largely eliminated. Railroads that are swamped today were worried, less than three years ago, about where to get business to tide them over what looked like lean days ahead. In early October, 1940, the then president of the Southern Pacific, A. D. McDonald, called a conference of railroad officers in San Francisco to devise ways of getting by in a slack period. How could economies be made and where could new business be found? But suddenly the heavens opened and defense traffic, which had been largely on paper up to that time, began to flood the S. P. right-of-way. Lumber, concrete and steel moved in huge quantities as army camps began

Your Blood Is Needed

May quota for Red Cross Blood Plasma Center — 5800 donors.

Donors so far this month— 2090.

Yesterday's quota—200. Yesterday's donors—141.

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.

to go up and shipyards and plane plants expanded. The pressure never has slackened since. ” » n

Introducing the C. T. C.

WITHOUT THE $170,000,000 of expenditures on S. Pacific lines between 1929 facilities would have been inundated. Another $50,000,000 was spent in 1941-42 for rolling stock and, with the Union Pacific, the S. P. went into a $10,500,000 car program for their subsidiary, the Pacific Fruit Express. The S. P. line northward over the Siskivou mountains, little used because of heavy grades since the new Cascade line was built some years ago, came back into being as a busy railroad. To help free railroads the S. P. began diverting more merchandise to its highway trucking subsidiary, and today is saving 7000 cars a month for heavy, long-haul war cargo by these methods. The Southern Pacific made heavy locomotive purchases—110 steam and 72 Diesel switch engines, just prior to Pearl Harbor, and about 10,000 new freight cars. But it had to go scouring the roundhouses for more equipment. It brought in 25 engines, some nearly 40 years old, from the Southern Pacific of Mexico lines. From the Northwestern Pacific it got six locomotives. Three en=gines came back to the rails after years of service as stationary boilers. Vast mileages of the Western roads were single track, and even with the operating miracles being performed there were tight places. The S. P., like the other roads, turned to those three magic letters that have been tremendous factors in meeting war traffic demands—C. T. C.—meaning centralized traffic control. ” ” ”

Increasing Track Capacity

THIS PUTS the dispatcher in direct control of block signals and switches at all passing sidings and use of train orders is eliminated. with C. T. C., by lights on a track diagram of his entire district, the dispatcher can see where each train is: immediately under the chart is a set of levers by which siding switches are controlled. Signals indicate when the main line is clear or when a siding switch is open, and once on ga siding a train stays there until the dispatcher opens the switch and gives a signal to proceed. C. T. C. costs $17,000 a mile, and railroad men say it gives 75 per cent of double track capacity —and manpower and steel rails aren't available today for much double track. The Union Pacific is pushing 200 miles of C. T. C. across the Nevada desert, and the Sante Fe

it and

What the engineer sees. A small depot and signal tower on the

plains where two hurrying trains pass.

big diesel’s windshield wiper.

a big push ahead and they're getting ready. Believing as early as 1936 that if war came to Europe the United States would be affected, William M. Jeffers, Union Pacific president, ordered a huge expansion program for this line which first bridged the continent. The U. P. spent $31,000,000 on 145 new locomotives, including the world’s largest steam puller, the “Big Boy.” Some $70,000,000 went for new equipment in the decade before Pearl Harbor. Railroads can do more than haul tremendous freight and passenger loads, too. The good ones know their lines and everything along them; the Union Pacific aided the army and navy in locating and establishing camps and depots. It used a branch line built to haul construction materials for Boulder Dam to carry materials now to a new war-born magnesium plant, and furnished and hauled thousands of tank cars of water to the construction site before pipe lines could be built into it.

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Women in Overalls

WITH THOUSANDS of rail workers in military service and manpower scarce (shipyards and airplane factories are tough pompetition for railroads), women have taken over dozens of jobs on the Santa Fe, S. P. and other lines. In world war I they took housekeeping jobs—car cleaning, etc.—but today they're at work in thousands as locomotive wipers, crew callers, yard and roundhouse clerks, and even as turntable operators, steam hammer drivers and rivet heaters, Track wear has been heavy, track maintenance labor scarce. White-collar workers and college students come out for special week-end track jobs on the S P. lines now, wielding picks and shovels, setting tie-plates and spikes. “Help win the war,” the S.P. advertised. “Get healthy outdoor exercise and be paid for it.” On the Santa Fe has fallen much of the hugé load of materials supply for huge airplane

Silhouetted at the top is the

plants in San Diego and elsewhere in Southern California. Over its Los Angeles-San Diego line it is handling one of the country’s heaviest passenger loads, up to a peak of 1800 on an 18- or 20-car train. Hundreds stand during week-end crushes. o n n

Hunt for Locomotives

SOUND OPERATION men like President ' Elsey of the Western Pacific, feeding unprecedented cargoes of supplies into San Francisco port and war plants of that area, worry about a danger of locomotive shortages, The W. P, which is among U. 8. railroads showing greatest increases in business, ties into the Denver & Rio Grande at Ogden, which in turn connects with the Burlington and Missouri Pacific lines to provide a long overland haul, Last winter the W. P. borrowed engines from the Duluth, Mesabi & Iron Range line, which was quiet since the ore season had closed; from the Milwaukee, Denver & Rio Grande and other roads. But the ore engines had to go back when spring came and the others are only on call—with the load getting heavier all the time. War raises problems for railroads never seen by the public as it rides the lines. When tin grew scarce and packers went to glass jars, sand (to make glass) shipments from Nevada to San Fran cisco and Los Angeles via Union Pacific jumped from about 35 to 200 cars a month. Submarines drove Central American banana boats from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and the U. P. has handled 5000 carloads overland since October. And cars never were scarcer, Probably there's no more crucial transportation area in the United States today than from the Mojave desert to the Golden Gate. As war shifts Pacificward, the task will grow tougher. But California railroaders say they can take it.

NEXT-—The Pacific Northwest at war.

OWI TO PUBLICIZE SERVICE ACTIVITIES

NEW YORK, May 20 (U. P.).— Publication of books by the British government on its war effort today gave impetus to a plan by the OWT to publish a similar series of| books on the activities of American | fighting forces. Elmer Davis, director of the OWI, | disclosed the plan in an address| at which he praised the British | publications. “These documents are not merely 60,000 word official communigues,” he said. “They are good, exciting reading and have sold beyond the wildest dreams of the American

book industry. “In the belief that the American

No Cuts in Book Paper Expected

WASHINGTON, May 20 (U. P.) —Book-lovers were assured today by the WPB that the paper shortage will not make further inroads into the number of books to be published for summer and early fall reading. W. G. Chandler, director of the WPB printing and publishing division, said it is not likely that further restrictions on paper for book publishing will be imposed prior to Oct. 1, provided that publishers live strictly within their quotas. Book publishers now are allotted a maximum of 90 per cent of the weight of paper consumed in the production of books in the first period of 1942,

public will be just as interested in| HOLD EVERYTHING

official accounts of the activities of their own fighting forces, the OWI

is about to undertake a similar|

program.”

SIGMA TAU DELTA CHAPTER INITIATES

Eight new members have been | initiated into the Butler university chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, national professional English honorary society. They are Ione Colligan, Jack DeVine, Evelyn McGinley, Richard Moores, Horace Powell, Jeane Sig- |

kel, Betty Thome and Joan Fuller.!

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WOODMEN LUNCHEON SET

The Officers club of Ramona! Grove Supreme Forest Woodmen | circle will be entertained by Ms. | May Beaver, state manager, at a noon luncheon tomorrow at the Marott hotel. A how yr meeting

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