Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 24 May 1943 — Page 10

MONDAY, MAY 24, 1943

The Indianapolis Times

SECOND SECTION

Hoosier Vagabond

NORTHERN TUNISIA (By Wireless).—This column has three heroes, if you want to call them that. They are the three men who commanded, one after the other, the same infantry company—all within

five hours of battle. For lack of a better name we'll simply call it company K. It was daytime. The whole company was pinned down on a green wheatfield that led up onto the slope of a hill. We were trying to take the Germans on the back slope of the hill, but from the ridge thev could butcher our men below with their machineguns if they stirred. Lt. Richard Cole of Worcester, Mass. was commander of company K. In mid-afternoon a German shell found him as he lay in hiding with his men in the wheat. One leg got only a slight wound, but the other was shattered. Lt. Cole saved his life by using his head. He made 2 tourniquet of his handkerchief, and using a fountain pen for a lever, he twisted the tourniquet and held it, and the same time began slowly crawling to the rear. . Darkness came on and he continued to crawl slowly, attending to the tourniquet at intervals. Some time during the night he felt a telephone wire under him. He cut it, knowing that eventually linemen would come looking for the break. And finally they did come. It was long after daylight, and Lt. Cole had by then been wounded 20 hours. He is now in a hospital. Not only will he live, but he won't even lose a leg. One of these days he will “probably be going home to recuperate.

Nazis Fled in ‘Terror’

AS SOON as Lt. Cole was wounded. Lt. Theodore Antonelli of New Britain, Conn, automatically took command of company K. They waited in the wheatfield till dusk, then began slowly working around the left end of the hill that was facing them. They took the Germans from the rear, completely by surprise. They rushed up the hill and attacked with bayonets.

Inside Indianapolis By Lowell Nussbaum)

JERRY F. HALLADAY, 303 W. 44th st, is getting ready to cash in on his farming venture. Some weeks ago he built a small chicken pen in his garage and acquired some baby chicks. Now the chicks are getting pretty geod sized, and in two or three weeks he'll be dining on fried chicken with all the fixin's—if he can find some potatoes, Street railway cars and busses now are being placarded with signs reminding riders that the city council has passed an ordinance making it an offense to smoke in a public conveyance. . . . One of the amusing yarns left in the wake of the flood is the one about the man who asked the soldier driver of an amphibious jeep, down at Sunshine Gardens, if he would take him over to his home, which was in the submerged rea. The soldier courteously agreed, thinking the trip must be important. As the man climbed into a ’ window of the house from the seagoing jeep, he said: “Wait here for me: I'll be through shaving in about 10 minutes.” The soldier waited.

Who's a Bum!

AL FEENEY, the former sheriff, has been broadcasting information about the new financial responsi-

wy bility law which goes into effect July 1, on a program

sponscred by the Allstate Insurance Co. This isn't Al's first venture on the air. Some years ago, he recalls, he initiated a sports broadcast and got in the habit of making some pretty strong statements. That was back in the days when Chuck Wiggins, the heavyweight, was beating up police by the half dozen. Al started off one of his 15-minute broadcasts with some very sarcastic remarks about Chuck. A‘ couple of minutes later a studio official held a note in front of him informing Al that “Wiggins called and said he’s

Sweden

STOCKHOLM, May 24 —(By Wireless)—Looking out this window to the east, one sees another appalling example of how the Nazis miss their opportunities. This is in connection with their occupation of the three Baltic states—Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. When the Germans drove the Russians out of these countries the people hailed the Nazis as liberators. That lasted about a month. The conduct of the Germans quickly chilled the population, and provided another example of the remarkable gift of the Nazis for making themselves the most hated people in Europe. The Russians had treated the Baitic peoples badiy. The Germans took up where the Russians had left off. They didn’t give back the property taken away by the Russians. Soon the people began saying the Nazis were just Russians in

By Ernie Pyle

Lt. Antonelli, instead of staying behind his com- | pany, pulled out his 45 and led the company up the | hill. Usually a company commander doesn’t do this, but this time it was the thing to do. Antonelli paid for his bravery. A hand-thrown German grenade scattered fragments over his chest. and he fell. His wounds were not serious, but they put him out of action. He had had command of company K just four hours. Next in line of command was Sgt. Arthur Godwin. He instantly assumed the command expected of him, and he carried it so well that today his praises are being sung throughout the whole division. Sgt. Godwin led his men in one of the few bayonet charges Americans made in the Tunisian war. They didn't kill or capture the enemy. He just fled in terror, yelling “Madmen! Madmen!” The hill was taken.

Sergeant Wins Commission

SGT. GODWIN is from Enterprise, Ala. the cotton town that is famous for its statue to the boil weevil. Back home he used to drive a truck; and in season he roved the Florida orchards as a fruit-picker. He is 26 and has been in the army more than three years. Everybody in the regiment, including its commanding officer, wished Godwin could keep company K, he had served it so well. But it was impossible. Other officers in the battalion deserved a company command. So Sgt. Godwin was replaced the next day. But wait—the story doesn't have a bitter end nor a sad one. Godwin has had a commission in the offing ever since he landed in Africa six months ago. It was one of these army things. Months passed and nothing happened. Like a good soldier, he kept on plugging as a sergeant. But the division commander has put a stop to that nonsense. He exercised his right to promote a man on the battlefield, and within a few hours after the last German was marched off the hill Sgt. Godwin was Ut. Godwin. A company command will not be far behind. Everybody is glad. That's the way good men rise to their rightful niche in battle, where true character shows and red tape is a hated phrase.

3 :

coming up here to beat hell out of you” Al started sweating. And he kept on sweating for the remaining eight minutes of his program. Those eight minutes seemed like eight hours. The moment he signed off. he beat it down the back stairway, without seeing Chuck. It was some time later, he recalls, that he learned Chuck hadn't called at all. The voice of Chuck had been imitated over the phone by Stanley Feezle,

First and Last

OUR ITEM last week about a group of soldiers, returning to camp after furloughs, being forced to stand aside at Union Station until civilians had boarded the Jeffersonian, has a sequel. A railroad official comes forth with an explanation. The Jeffersonian, he points out, is one of those trains on which reserved coach seats are sold. Those reservations are contracts between the railroad and the passenger, and so persons with reservations for specific seats are permitted to board such trains first. Then passengers without reservations climb aboard. On trains without reserved coach seats, it's customary to permit men | in uniform to go aboard ahead of civilians.

Home on Furlough

ROY CONRAD. state senator from Monticello who! now is serving in the navy as a chief petty officer, | has been visiting friends here on furlough. He's had some interesting experiences. . Dr. Larry S. Fall received from some source or other one of those “short snorter” dollar bills. The bill had four signa-! tures on it, three of which were “George W. Holder, | Art K. Kroner and William C. Callahan.” The short snorter losing the bill can have it by guessing the name of the fourth signer—and producing another doilar bill in exchange. . . Lt. W. G. Nichols writes | us from over in Africa. He's a first lieutenant now, | was promoted recently.

By Raymond Clapper

lasting results by pushing people around? The Nazis were aware of the effect the Russian treatment of the Baltic peoples had had in Sweden. Yet when the Nazis drove the Russians out in the summer of 1941 they repeated the same blunders. The Germans held onto property that the Russians had confiscated, on the theory that it belonged to the German state after its capture from the Russian state. Instead of restoring it to the original owners, the Germans are distributing the property to their own people as a means of establishing complete economic control.

Finns Put Chips on Germany

THE GERMANS have taken over textile factories, 32 distilling and alcohol plants, the entire tobacco industry, electrical utilities, movies, dairies, co-opera-tives—in short, the main industries. The Jews were driven out. It was rather bad treatment all around, with heavy labor drafts.

|" scarcely

DAVIES GUEST AT

Tempest Rages Over Film Capital's Venture

Into Modern Diplomacy ‘Not Entirely Happy One’

No film since the beginning of the war has stirred more controversy than “Mission to Moscow,” Hollywood's version of Ambassador Joseph

E. Davies’ book of the same title.

Eugene Lyons, who for six years was

United Press correspondent in Moscow, regards the film as a deliberate distortion of history for propaganda purposes. His views are disclosed

in a series of four ‘articles, of which

the following is the first.

By EUGENE LYONS

Editor of the American Mercury and author of Assignment in Utopia and the Red Decade.

HOLLYWOOD'S FIRST venture

into big-time

diplomacy, the Warner Brothers production of “Mission to

Moscow,” has not been entirely a happy one.

Already

there are puffs and swirls of resentment against its han-

dling of recent facts which

bid fair to build up into a

cyclone of nation-wide indignation. The movie capital has long been accustomed to taking

large dramatic license with costume pictures.

Unluckily,

far-off history in romantic it has carried this habit into

an attempt to film close-up history of current affairs. The result is a stew of fact and fiction, mixed dates and caricatured persons, which is ludicrous or tragic, de-

pending on the point of view. Polish and other diplomats and

American, British,

political leaders are crudely smeared in “Mission tp Mos-

cow” Joseph Superman Davies. It is hard to believe that the people gratuitously insulted will not find ways and means of making effective protest. Our senators, for instance, are represented as a collection. of boobs. Throughout the film, indeed, democratic methods come off third best in contrast with the strong, sure and gay methods® of Soviet dictatorship. The hero's predecessor in the Moscow post, William C. Bullitt, is discounted as an incompetent or worse by repeated references to Mr. Davies as the ‘first and only diplomat who saw or comprehended anything about Russia. The British Ambassador, Lord Chilton, as well as all other diplomats except Mr. Davies, are depicted in the film as fools, or charlatans, or both. =

= ”

It Bored Some

THE INITIAL reviews, written by routine movie critics, gave a hint of the storm brewing. They were clearly not equipped to judge the political facts and implications of a ‘pieture so far off the beaten Hollywood paths. Most of them found the film boring but seemed too intimidated by the subject matter to say so with a full mouth. John T. McManus of the New York tabloid PM went overboard with the view that it was “the most significant film to come out of Hollywood in 25 years,” but

others were more reserved. The mov ie trade journal Variety

STALIN DINNER

United Nation Leaders Are

Toasted at 18-Course State Banquet. (U. P)—

MOSCOW, May 24

Premier Josef.Stalin gave Joseph E.

by way of emphasizing the wisdom of its hero,

found that “Mission to Moscow” had “strong B. O."—a commercial allusion to box office and not a political criticism in terms of aroma. Both the New York Times and Herald-Tribune reviewers praised the film with considerable warmth. But all of them slurred over the main question—whether and to what extent the picture is true or false—by vague remarks about its “controversial” nature. Here and there a critic guessed sagely that “Trotskyites” would take violent exception to the picture. If the definition of “Trotskye ites” be sufficiently enlarged to take in all liberal, controversial and in-between Americans who have now begun to attack the film, that guess was correct. The regular reviewers, measured ‘“Mission to Moscow” as they would another boy-and-girl drama or a historical romance. It has remained for writers with the necessary political background to review the picture in terms of its veracity. The verdict is most unfiattering.

Calls It Phony

DOROTHY THOMPSON, in her widely syndicated column, described the picture as “phony.” She declared that “the characters are phony; the history is phony; the understanding will be distorted, not clarified.” She added that “the tastelessness of the film is appalling. . It- has been suggested that this film needs cutting. It does—indefinitely.” “Anne O'Hare McCormick of the New York Times, a close student of Soviet affairs, is no less forthright in her condemnation. She writes in part: “If anything is calculated to cause misunderstanding between ‘the two countries it is the false

= »

Scientist Invents Improved Method of Rifling Artillery

By Science Service

WASHINGTON, May

ganization for

making effective for war purposes hibitive, Dr. Vannevar Bush, director of the Of- of the gun is bored and reamed to fice of Scientific Research and De- approximately the desired conforvelopment, personally contributes a mation. Then a plug, with its outer

American scientific resources,

24. ~The | another cylindrical portion near the head of the principal national or. | muse. Such a gun might be rifled

co-ordinating and!

\

. ol / Mission to Moscow

A scene from the picture: Bukharin, one of the purgees, is arrested by ‘0GPU in a bookshop. Konstantine

Ann Harding and Walter Huston Joseph E. Davies in the Warner

picture of America, the false picture of Russia and the false picture. of history that are com=-_ bined in the distorted composite to which the former ambassador unluckily gives his authorization in an introductory speech. The film does not even stick to the facts in his book.”

Both the Nation and the New Republic, which can hardly be charged with prejudice against Russia, give the picture a black eye. The Nation editorially regrets the historical falsification. The New Republican, in an extended review by Manny Farber, confers the “booby prize” on Warner Brothers for the job and sums up an analysis of the film with the statement that “to a

|ereater part of the length, and

| with existing tools, but the cost in (money and time would be pro-

In Dr. Bush's method, the barrel

Shane plays the part.

are shown here as Mr. and Mrs. Bros. film, “Mission to Moscow.”

democratic intelligence it is repulsive and insulting.” Even Life, which only recently devoted a whole issue to uncritical praise of Russia, dismisses “Mission to Moscow” as a “whitewash.” ”

Film ‘Pure Fiction’

A NUMBER of others have had their say in a symposium published by the New Leader, a labor weekly which is as much antiTrotsky as it is anti-Stalin, Among those who castigated the ‘film are Dr. Harry Gideonse, president of Brooklyn college; the prominent writers Edmund Wilson, Max Eastman and James Burnham; Professor Sidney Hook of New York university, and Pro-

RE-ELECT ALL K. OF C. OFFIGERS

Action Taken Here at the

Annual One-Day Convention.

All officers of the Indiana council, Knights of Columbus, were re-

o un

fessor Meyer Schapiro of Colum= bia university. “The film is pure fiction,” Gideonse charges, adding: “I felt a deep sense of shame that such trash should be pre-. sented as a historical document based on official American government documents.” Edmund Wilson “Mission to Moscow” is “a fraud on the American public.” He contrasts its whitewash of Stalin's blood purges with its brutal attacks on American policies. “We draw the conclusion,” he points out, “that democratic institutions are interior to Soviet purges.’ “One must turn to Nazi propa=ganda films for a similar technique and indifference to truth,” Professor Schapiro writes. Max Eastman warns that the film “is but the high point of a wave of national self-abasement and hysterical adulation of a backward nation on the other side of the globe that healthy Americans ought to regard with alarm.”

Dr.

states that

» u » ‘A Hollywood Blunder’ IN UNDERTAKING a more de= tailed discussion of the picture I want to indicate at the outset that I agree with all these strictures. As one who has kept more than average touch with Soviet history and personalities, I was shocked by the crude and offen childish distortion of facts, invention of facts, juggling of dates and vilification of people and nations that do not happen to enjoy Mr. Davies’ and the Warners’ approval, It seems to me immensely ime portant that the picture be thoroughly debunked and exposed before it works its full potential of harm on the minds of our people and on our relations with other members of the united nations. The world must somehow be given to understand that this is a Hollywood blunder and does not represent a sudden Ameri can love for totalitarian justice and the Kremlin type of foreign diplomacy.

Club Men Plan Speech Contesl

The Men's club of Beth-El Zedeck temple will present war stamps as prizes to the winners in the clube sponsored oratorical contest for the religious” school pupils, Wednesday at 8:30 p. m,, in the temple. The contest will be held at. an open meeting of the club at which both men and women guests will welcome,

Estonia is regarded as the closest to Germany Davies, special American envoy, a among the Baltic states, so the Nazis have grantea|4':-hour, 18-course state banquet|ihe 580 inventions of the week onthe desired shape of the finished, the Estonians the right to intermarry with German'last night and toasted President which patents have been issued by rifled interior, is inserted. This plug citizens. Roosevelt, Premier Churchill and the U. S. Patent Office. ‘has a groove along one side, in Here again it is the story of Holland and Norway the united nations. Dr. Bush's invention is which two long wedges operate.

elected during the one-day annual convention here yesterday. Preceding the session, mass was celebrated at St. John's church by

significant technical advance, among | dimensions closely corresponding to

subjects from the junior division are: Hillel Chodos, “Chaim Weizmann” (president of. the World

¥ gnhother uniform. They called the Nazi officials “Brown Commissars.” There seems to have been even less excuse for the Germans alienating these peoples than some of the

an im- |

others, since they put the administration of the Baltic states under Alfred Rosenberg, who, though an original Nazi, was born in Estonia.

Repeat Russian Blunders

THE RUSSIANS had instituted a brutal regime when they got into the Baltic states soon after the outbreak of the war in Europe. They took over industries, making the former owners their temporary managers, There were heavy deportations. For instance, Estonia, having a population of 1.100.000, had 50,000 deported. And that phase had just begun when the Germans moved in. The Russians’ conduct in the Baltic states was used by the Swedes as an example of how Russia would behave if she became a permanent neighbor. Thus Swedish fears were aggravated and Swedish sympathies for Finland strengthened. Why won't nations learn that they do not get

My Day

WASHINGTON, Sunday.—I was back in Washington Friday morning and spent the day seeing people, some of them for purely social reasons, and some of them on business. It always surprises me ._how one can fill a day with appointments 15 minutes to a half hour in length, and apparently never see all those who wish to see you. Last night we saw the picture “Mission to Moscow,” which has excited so much comment among various people. It is interesting to me primarily because of the journey which Ambassador Davies took to the various parts of Russia. That journey explains to me the ability of the Russias to stand up against the Germans. They were far more developed elong many lines of industry than I had realized. Nor had I sensed the fact that they were so con#cious of the danger of the war that they had prepared themselves to move Jo me in

a

and all the other occupied countries except Denmark, | {

which—in spite of the Nazi effort to make the Danes white marble Catherine room in the | which makes practicable a type of | gun bore which ordnance men have | of cutting tools, linked into an end-

The banquet was held in the big

into model teachers’ pets, allowing them more meat Kremlin while Davies was awaiting | than the Germans get—has increasing sabotage and |a second summons to Stalin's office

ever more grudging co-operation.

{to receive his official reaction to

Only Finland seems to be a willing captive. The President Roosevelt's long personal Finnish people are friendly enough to us, but so long letter.

as we are on the same side as Russia there is not] much chance that the Finns will break away trom | Germany to help us. One wing of the Finnish labor party has tas} arguing that Germany is losing the war and that] Finland should change her policy, but #he premier’ s| latest statement ends that agitation. while the politi-| cal police, headed by an imitation of the Nazi Himm-| ler, probably will continue intimidating friends of | the allies.

WASHINGTON, May 24 (U.P). —Secretary of State Cordell Hull today expressed pleasure at dissolution of the Communist International. He said it would promote a greater degree of trust among the united nations and aid the winning of the war.

Arguments evidently are futile with the Finnish au-

thorities, who are putting all their chips on Germany. | A highlight of the evening was

By Eleanor Roosevelt

their war industries to other locations, if the fortunes of war made it necessary. Today the page boys at the capitol, who were my guests earlier in the winter, are coming for a picnic lunch in the White House garden. I am very happy to have these boys because I do not think their lives are particularly easy. It is a great opportunity for them to serve the government and to come in contact with outstanding figures in the country. On the other hand, it is not entirely a normal existence for their age, and I do not think all of them find it an easy adjustment, The other night, when I attended the war workers’ canteen, a song was sung called “I Am On My Way.” written by Mrs. Stuart C. Godfrey. Mrs. Godfrey have written and published a song called “The U. S. Engineers Fight Song.” Mrs. Godfreyv is the founder of an organization called: “Music for the Services,” which has really done a great deal of work. . The object is to supply army camp and navy base recreation rooms with instruments, records and

military black boots, sat at the center of a long table with Davies at his right and Sir Archibald Clark Kerr, the

the showing of the American movie, “Mission to Moscow,” Davies’ book and in which Stalin, Foreign Commissar Viacheslav M. Molotov and other Soviet leaders are depicted. An interpreter sat alongside Stalin and made a running translation of the English dialogue. displayed great movie,

based on

Stalin was said to have interest in the

Hails Stalin as Leadef The first toast was given by Molo-

tov for Davies, who responded with a toast for Molotov and one to the “unity of the united nations today and in the peace to come.”

Stalin toasted the united nations,

Gen. and | Mr. Roosevelt and Churchill, and Davies responded with Sta

a toast to 1 as a “great leader.” Stalin, wearing a light gray semitunic and trousers and

(proved method for rifling artillery,

long regarded as ideal but unattain- | less chain, which is slowly drawn

able in practice.’

Gun bores at present. are cylin-| rotates the stationary plug. drical or practically so. Much better, obtaining properly rifling the gun, smoothness of starting and move- | what the curves of its breech-to-

for the purposes of

ment of the projectile when fired,

would be a bare having a cylindrical | portion near the breech, a gradually |in his patent, royalty-free, to thé tapering portion throughout the'government.

| These wedges press against the smooth interior of the bore a series

it slowly This | produces a series of twisted grooves,

no matter

{ through the gun while

muzzle profile may be. The inventor has assigned rights

Ruth E. Simering Is in Australia

RUTH E. SIMERING, formerly a resident of this city, has are

rived safely in Australia with 33

other Red Cross workers. A medical social worker, | Miss Simering was a psychiatric employee at the ' Veterans’ administration in Washington prior to her Red Gross assignment . overseas. Miss Simering A graduate of Indiana university, she had previously practiced

her profession in Chicago.

Five other workers of the or- | ganization have arvived to aug- |

ment ‘the established staff in |

Your Blood | Is Needed

May quota for Red Cross Blood Plasma Center — 5800 donors. Donors so far this month— 2388. Saturday's quota—200. Saturday's donors—100.

You can help meet the quota by call'ng LI-1441 for an appointment or going to the center, second floor, Chamber of Commerce building, N. Meridian st.

GOLDEN RULE O. E. S. TO MEET

Golden Rule chapter, O. E. 8. will meet at Masonic Temple Friday ‘night. Mrs. ' Barbara Fuller and | Leon Scherrer will preside.

| —

the Very Rev. Msgr. Thomas Kilfoil, Bloomington, chaplain, John T. Rocap, Indianapolis, served as chair man .of the resolutions committee. The list of officers was headed by Henry Hasley, Ft. Wayne, siate deputy, and included Harry J. Fitzgerald, Evansville, secretary, Mr. Rocap, advocate; Willlard Moran, Connersville, warden, and William J. Mallon, Michigan City, treasurer.

Powell Named to Board ’

Gilbert Powell, New Albany, was named to the board of directors of Gibault home in Terre Haute. Dele~ gates to the national convention, to be held in August in Cleveland, will be Victor Bonher, Jasper; Robert D. Maney, Vincennes; Charles Shanle, Evansville; Brother Rupert, director of Gibault home; Daniel J. McInnes, Gary, and W. Lawrence Sexton, Indianapolis. The session was opened by the Most Rev. Joseph E. Ritter, D.D,, bishop of the Indianapolis diocese,

TIPTON WILL PROBE LOCAL GIRL’S DEATH

TIPTON, Ind, May 24 (U, P.).— Horace C. Holmes, Tipton county prosecutor, said today that a grand jury investigation would be called, soon into the fatal shooting of Laura Ida Smith, 15, Indianapolis, who died in an Elwood hospital Friday. Russell Krauss,

OLD AGE MEETING TONIGHT

Old Age Pension Group 11 will |give a card party at the I. O. O. F. hall, Hamilton ave. and E. Wash8

i

ington st.

| police said he admitted he “probably shot her” while they were in

the Tipton county jail after state

28, Indianapolis, | Alling station operator, was held in|

lander, “Moses and Malmonidea” Miriam Kulwin will sek “Conservative Judaism” and Corin Goldberg, on “War and Its Upon Jews.” Both girls are i intermediate division. Seniors. the titles of their addresses, Jack Fivel, “Solomon Sche Founder of conservative Jud America;” Gertrude Rap “Zionism:” Devera Fisher, “Rebece was | Gratz” (the Rebecca of Scott's Ivan hoe); and Robert Laner, Lazarus.”

HOLD EVERYTHING