Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 25 May 1943 — Page 12
Hoosier Vagabond
IN TUNISIA (by wireless).—The major portion of my time during the Tunisian campaign was spent
with.the first infantry division and the first armored division. That was because they were the earliest ones on the scene and I was best acquainted with them. But there were other divisions too in Tunisia, and in the final phase all contributed their part to the cracking of the Hun, If the war had lasted longer I would have swung over and written about these other units too, but since that chance didn't come, those of you at home who have men in these divisions may know that what I've written about one is largely representative of all The first armored division was the one that made the kill and got the mass of prisoners. Yet their fighting was no better and no greater than that of the first infantry division, which lost so heavily cleaning out the mountains, or of the 34th division, which took the key Hill 609 and made the victory possible, or of the ninth division, which swert the Heinies out of the rough coastal country in the north, or of the artillery that softened up the enemy, or of the fighting engineers who kept streams bridged and highways passable. Or of any other of the countless units that contributed to the whole, and without a single one of which all the others would have been lost.
Worst Is Yet to Come!
IN THIS final phase of the Tunisian campaign we hear a word of criticism of our men. They like veterans. They were well handled. We had encugh of what we needed. Everything meshed perfectly. and the end was inevitable. So you at home need never be ashamed of our American fighters. Even though they didnt do too well in the beginning. there was never at any time any question about the Americans’ bravery.
#
t have yet to
-e Jab ought
It is a matter of being hardened and practiced by going through the flames. Tunisia has been a good warmup field for our armies. We will take an increasingly big part in the battles ahead. The greatest disservice you folks at home can do our men over here is to believe we are at last over the hump. For actually—and over here we all know it—the worst is yet to come. Everybody Has a Souvenir OUR FRONT-LINE troops by now are getting) pretty well saturated with little personal things they) got from the Germans. Nearly everybody has a souvenir of some kind, running all the way from machine guns to writing paper. A good many soldiers have made new pistol grips for themselves out of the windshields of shot-down German planes. The main advantage of this switch from the regulation handle is that the composition] is transparent; you can put your girl's picture under; the grip and it will show through. ! Sgt. Gibson Fryer, of Troy, Ala, has a picture of his wife on each side of the handle of his 45 Sgt. Fryer had an experience on one of the last) few days of the campaign that will be worth telling his grandchildren about. He was in a foxhole on a steep hillside. An 83-mm. shell landed three feet! away and blew him out of his hole. He rolled, out, of control, 50 yards down the rocky hillside. He) didn't seem to be wounded, but all his breath was gone. He couldn't move. He couldn't make a sound. | His chest hurt. His legs wouldn't work. A medic came past and poked him. Sgt. Fryer! couldn't say anything, so the medic went on. Pretly soon two of Fryers best friends walked past and he heard one of them say, “There's Sgt. Fryer. I guess he's dead.” And they went right on, too. It was more than an hour before Fryer could move, but within a few hours he was perfectly normal again. | He laughs and says that if his wife sees this in print] shell think for sure he’s a hero.
Inside Indianapolis By Lowell Nussbaum
REUBEN WINCHESTER, sales manager for Contimental Optical, is telligg friends about the unusual crop produced by his victory garden out in Sherwood Village. ‘The garden was covered by about four feet of water during the fiood. When the water went down, a puddle was left. And in the puddle, says Mr. Winchester, were something like 39 goldfish, which a neighbor lad quickly scooped up. Mr. Winchester is seeking witnesses to prove the sory. « . « Helen Bering. chief clerk of rationing board 49-9. at 1534 College, tells of the fellow who visited the board, asking a new A book to replace one he said he had losk Asked if he knew the serial num=er of the book he lost, he said: “Sure, here it is.” Whereupon he reached in his pocket. pulled out the missing book and siarted reading the number. Then his face got red and he hurried out of the place.
Meet in Australia
CHARLES D. MOSIER, the C. of C. safety director, fs much embarrassed over his receipt of a police ¥Y sticker for overtime parking. . . . He paid it. . .. Mrs. John W. Spragg, 1644 N. New Jersey, has received a letter from her nephew, Joseph E. Kirch, formerly with the National Wholesale Grocery Co. and now in the signal corps, telling of his meeting over in Australia with his cousin, William Wood, of the air force. They had a nice visit. . . . Jack Albershardt sends us a clipping of the flood map carried in The Times last + Thursday and inquires if the flood washed the town of Marion from Grant county to Madison county. (At least. it was shown on the map in Madison.) We blush. Jack. That's our home town. . . . Head shapes of some of our citizens—prominent and otherwise— are being displayed in the window of Hoosier Hatters, on Kentucky ave. The display was prepared by hatter Walter Mendell. There seems to be a tie between Lt.
Sweden
GOTHENBURG. Sweden. May 25 (By Wireless).— Although there is a wartime political truce in Sweden g opposition to the Stockholm government exists here. The cpposition demands a more active policy of favoring the allies. This ancient maritime city is the center of pro-ally strength in Sweden. and has been from the start of the war. The opposition leader is the most celebrated editor- in Scandinavia, Prof. Torgny Segerstedt of the Gothenburg Handels-Stidn-ing, which the Manchester Guardian of Sweden. Although he isa provincial editor, this whitehaired Horace Greeley is one of the most powerful men in Sweden. and he is.feared by the government. The Nazis had a price on his head. For a long time he carried a gun, and he had two great Danes which walked to the office with him. One of these Gied. whereupon a friend sent him a barrel-legged » English bulldog.
Goering Couldn't Intimidate Him
ON THE DAY Hitler came to power in 1933, Mr. Sezerstedt wrote an editorial saying this meant war with the democracies. A telegram came the next day from Hermann Goering, warning him not to make trouble. Mr. Segerstedt used the telegram as his « text for a second warning that the Nazis could not ™ intimidate the free press. He has carried the fight to this day. when he is bitterly critical of Stockholm for permitting Gerinan troops to travel through Sweden on their way to and from Nerway. At lunch Mr. Segerstedt told me that Germany was ir no position to retaliate on Sweden, and that Stockholm could cancel the German troop trains without getting into war as the government fears. These trains go through Gothenburg, one each way every day.
My Day
WASHINGTON, Monday.—I flew up to New York City yesterday afternoon to attend the meeting last night which opened the second annual Harlem week. The committee has been working for a year in order to bring to New York City a better understanding of the problems, not only in Harlem itself, but in some of the other “Harlems” scattered around the city. They have made some real advances, but they feel that this coming year must be directed toward bringing up the school standards in that area and much more done for recreation and organized play for children in the neighborhood. This will be an effort to counteract juvenile delinquency. It was the first time I had met some of the assemblymen now serving in the New York state legislature from that district. I was glad to find them so interested in eliminating the roots of troubles, rather than waiting to remedy results, which if tackled earlier might have been less
is
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I went to the railroad tracks and
Gov. Charley Dawson, Paul V. McNutt, Roscoe Turner and Joe O'Hara of Strauss’, for the biggest head, judging from the head shapes. will H. Smith is unchallenged for the roundest head, while Dr. C. W. Myers of City hospital qualifies easily for the lumpiest head.
Indi
Movie Has Only Hurrahs
For Russ Policies While
Condemning U.S. Motives
Following is the second in a series of articles by Eugene Lyons, former Moscow correspondent of the United Press, discussing the con-
| troversial film “Mission to Moscow,” which he regards as a lamentable
distortion of historical facts for propaganda purposes.
By EUGENE LYONS
Editor of the American Mercury and Author of “Assignment in Utopia” and “The Red Decade.”
TO OBTAIN A GENERAL idea of the ratio betwes: fact and fiction in “Mission to Moscow” let us consider a few episodes, taken almost at random. 1. The first pages of ex-Ambassador Davies’ book, on which the film is supposedly based, make no secret of the
deplorable food conditions in the Soviet Union.
The am-
bassadorial diary notes at the frontier that Loy Henderson, American charge d’affaire, “had eaten some ‘bad food (an experience quite common) the night before and had been pretty sick.” Later there is a notation that “Bill Bullitt’s advice was helpful in every way, and particularly very sound in suggesting that we bring a supply of food.” There
is a lot of contagion in food, Mr. Davies records, and no “safe” cream or vegetation in Russia. In the picture, however, the ‘entire Davies family feasts at the frontier and exclaims enthusiastically over the wonderful food. In many other scenes the abun-
| dance of food in the USSR is
suggested. Nowhere is there any allusion to food difficulties or to the heroic measures Mrs. Davies took to stock her larder with
Around the Town
SEEN IN AYRES’ bookshop: Mrs. Wendell Willkie, looking over the display of hubby's book, “One World.” and smiling when Ben Riker, Ayres’ book buyer, said the store had sold double its share of the books. . . . Lt. Gov. Charieyv Dawson has his own raincoat back again. He and Everett Brown, public service commission engineer, exchanged coats in the Hotel Harrison a couple of weeks ago. Through the jtem we ran in this column, Mr. Brown learned whose coat he had and the exchange was effected. . . . Add signs of the times: The wife of a friend reports finding it almost impossible to get an appointment in 2 neighborhood beauty parlor. She tried half a dozen. The reason: Many women have switched from downtown shops to neighborhood shops because of the | transportation problem.
Oh, My Goodness!
A FEMININE resident of the apartment building at 3015 N. Pennsylvania st. was leaving the building Saturday evening and happened te look up and notice water trickling through a bathroom window on the; second floor. She could hear water running from an| open faucet. With the memory of the floed still fresh, | she envisaged a bathroom filled with water up to the| window. Sc she got in touch with the people living] just beneath the apartment and between them they) rounded up the janitor. Climbing onto a porch roof.| the janitor managed to push the bathroom window] open. And then the cause of the water seeping out the window was discovered. There was a man in the| bathroom taking a shower bath with the spray hitting} the window. It was hard to tell who was more] annoyed—the janitor or the bather. |
By Raymond Clapper
saw one going south, loaded with troops being taken from Norway back to Germany. The Nazi) soldiers were young and looked fit. They smiled and] waved at anybody they saw along the tracks. The] train consisted of 20 cars—four baggage cars, and 16|
packed with troops. i Gothenburg authorities have been protesting that] it is dangerous to have German troop trains moving] through the country. Originally the north-and! south-bound trains crossed during the night near) Gothenburg, and the argument was made that it] would be easy to unload the trains, with fifth-coiumn | help, and do the same thing that was done in Norway. Protests forced a change, and the trains cross now; at a distant point. | This issue is hot politically, and feeling here is| strong. Neutral observers believe the government will | have to cancel these trains as soon as a major inci-’ dent occurs to provide an excuse.
Why Norwegians Are Bitter
THIS TROOP traffic is the main reason for Norwegian bitterness toward the Swedish government. Defenders of the government say it resisted German | demands for troop passage until after Norway| capitulated, when it saw no reason for further refusal, | since the traffic was only to permit the replacement of existing troops and not to increase the Germans strength in Norway. {
| United States.
{craft,
(Mr. Lvons wrote this article prior to the action in Moscow dissolving the Third International. —Editor's Note).
imported edibles. 2. The first time that the Nazi Foreign Minister, Herr von Ribbentrop, visited Moscow was in August, 1939, when he signed the 10-year {friendship and non-ag-gression pact with Stalin. The photograph of a beaming Stalin shaking hands with this Nazi official is familiar to all newspaper readers. =
Dates Are Twisted
IN THE Warner Brothers epic, however, Herr von Ribbentrop attends a Moscow ball in honor of Mr. Davies. He is shown making a date with Bukharin, an old Bolshevik later executed by the GPU, to meet at Bukharin's apartment. Incidentally, the presence of Bukharin, Radek and Yagoda, three of the men earmarked for execution, at that ball was impossible. Mr. Davies reached Russia in mid-January, 1937, at
i which time both Bukharin and
Radek were already under arrest; Yagoda was already in disgrace and would not have been allowed to attend such a function. But what's a little chronology to scenario writers! 3. In the book it is clear that Mr. Davies’ “mission,” in so far as there was one, was to try to collect the Russian debt to the That is the chief subject of his reports to Washing-
| ton
The corporation lawyer took the Moscow post reluctantly as a stop-gap until he could be assigned to a more desirable one. The press at the time revealed that the Davieses, having donated liberally to the Roosevelt campaign, had hoped for the London assignment and had been promised Berlin as a reward for the Moscow chore. It was more of a political payoff than a mission.
The picture converts these lowly facts into what is virtually a one-man crusade to stop the looming war. There is not a word about the debt or about the better post to come. The president begs Mr. Davies to assume the task of finding “the truth about Russia.” (The implied insult to American diplomats in Moscow in the preceding four years is one of the minor mysteries posed by the film.) = » = THE “MISSION” grows as the picture unreels. Theugh we had able representatives in all capitals, Davies is shown intruding on them all, lecturing the premiers and bankers, laboring single-handedly to stem the tide of war. Everyone, everywhere, always is wrong-headed and blind except Mr. Davies. 4. In June, 1937, eight leading Russian generals, among them Marshal Tukhachevsky, were tried in secret and shot. Mr. Davies recorded the fact in his journal without concealing his sense of horror. Later most of the military men who allegedly purged and sentenced these eight were in their turn “liquidated” by firing squads. Had Tukhachevsky really “cone fessed,” as claimed by his executioners, it is most unlikely that he would not have been accorded a public trial. He was the great military genius of his country and held the respect of strategists the world over. His conviction in star chamber proceedings was certainly a heavy count against the credibility of the whole purge. The Hollywood version fixes this matter neatly. The marshal is given a public trial! Words uttered by another defendant, Muralov, are put into his mouth. But that isn’t all! Since he is shown confessing in open court, together with men tried a year after his own execution, the Warner Bros. had to resurrect him for the purpose. 5. The national debate in Amerfca over conscription took place at a time when Russia was still collaborating with Nazi Germany. In line with Moscow-inspired isolationist slogans (such as “The Yanks Are Not Coming”), American Communists, fellow-travelers and innocent organizations fought the draft law tooth and nail. They picketed the White House and staged mass meetings on the question.
” 2 ” Propaganda Ignored THE PICTURE ignores this Russian-made opposition to conscription, as it ignores the entire 22 months of pro-axis propaganda by the Communist International.
By Ernie Pyle "NA ission to Moscow Called
Distortion of Facts
Haile Selassie, emperor of Ethiopia, pleads for aid from the League of Nations against Italian conquest as the unstable peace that foliowed the first world war begins to break down. Selassie is played by
the distinguished Negro actor, Leigh Whipper,
to Mussolini for the conquest of Ethiopia.
The movie Stalin (Mannart Kippen) explains the Soviet position in world affairs to Ambassador Davies (Walter Huston), in “Mission to
Moscow.”
But it goes further and rearranges dates to make it seem that Russia was already an ally when the law was projected and passed. Flashes about conscription are shown, together with flashes of Davies pleading for aid to Russia. 6. The most significant single fact about Russia's role in this war is that it is still strictly neutral in the Pacific theater of conflict. Relations between Russia and Japan are normal and friendly. Only recently an important fisheries treaty was concluded between them, which among other things, gives Japan access to weather information in Russian waters. Tokyo and Moscow alike constantly emphasize their adherence to their pact of friendship, negotiated with Berlin’s blessings. * The Warner Brothers fantasy conceals these facts from the
ASK REGULAR WORK [Soldiers S#ill Rate ‘Burgers’ No. 1 Gastronomic Delight
ON MEMORIAL DAY
WASHINGTON, May 25 (U. P).
|
—The WPB today asked all air-|
aluminum and mganesium 25.—The good old hamburger
Times Special CAMP ATTERBURY, Ind, May
is the least.
Next in order of preference at
is|the Service club cafeteria are steak,
Editor Segerstedt’s fight for the allied cause and]... rocturers to: operate as us-{Camp Atterbury’s favorite fodd, roast beef, pork, ham and liver. despite anything the quartermaster|Lamb rates with hot dogs.
against cold-blooded neutrality cost him heavily in circulation and advertising while the Nazis were win-|
which protested Nazi atrocities in Norway.
are bizger than ever. I did not ask him, but I have a hunch that if he were in America he would be screaming in boxcar type against President Roosevelt's restriction on free-
ual on Memorial day, Sunday, May
v \ t Now the cannot be met otherwise. tide has swung his way. Circulation and advertising! wwpB executive vice chairman! That's
{
: . : corps may say about its hot dogs ning. Stockholm confiscated one edition of his paper|30, if normal schedules for May being No. 1 on the soldiers’
| Parade” of foods.
to 50 leading aircraft manufac-| turers, asking that normal Sunday |
the opinion of
On the quartermaster list, canned
“HIt| grits out-ranked apple pie. Here, too, is a disputed point. Apple pie Miss and lemon pie far cut-sell the fruit {Charles E. Wilson sent telegrams Eunice Steinke, cafeteria hostess at in the Service club, with peaches Service club 2, who caters to the and fruit salad running second and whims of some 500 service men daily | third. in the club's restaurant.
The most popular single feature
dom of the press at the food conference. There has erations be maintained on that! Miss Steinke says that i" oo
been no public comment here on the Hot Springs conference. but excerpts from American editorials reaching here make puzzling reading in the presence of a free editor like Torgny Segerstedt.
By Eleanor Roosevelt
boy who sat behind me, suddenly squatted down inl
the following day. He sen
how many planes should be produced for the month of May. “Unless this schedule will be met or exceeded, the aircraft production board must insist that your
plant work on the basis of your pormal operations on May 30 and
the aisl 1 id: e aisle beside me and said: fon full production basis May 31,”
“I have just been transferred from the . . . destroyer. I was sorry io leave your son. I liked him| very much as an officer.” i
Then, today, on the way down, a young marine| 10, 4
flier sent a card back to me asking: i “May I come to talk to you? I am Ambassador Phillip’s nephew.” i We chatted 2 few minutes and I wished him good; luck in his future assignment. Now I must look for| his uncle and tell him of my chance meeting. The world is a very small place, for, as I waited for the plane, which was late in starting, a very! pretty young girl came up to say: “I am Florence Ketchum’s niece, and I am going for my first plane trip.” Florence Ketchum was one of the early workers for the New York State Democratic committee, women's division. She still edits a paper in her county and is an active citizen. I have just been sent an account of a new type of service which has been inaugurated in New York City. Tt is a consultation clinic for human problems. | The peovle who started it are very wise. They i
: that in times of stress, to have some one with whom
you can talk over your a great
| Wilson said.
Wilson sent a similar telegram aluminum and magnesium
CONGRESS MAY UP WIVES’ ALLOWANCE
WASHINGTON, May 25 (U. PJ). —Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge, (R. Mass.), yesterday introduced a bill
{plant a working schedule showing |
|
(to provide a 15 per cent increase g@, E. S. TO CONFER DEGREES in the government's contribution |
Your Blood "Is Needed
May quota for Red Cross Blood Plasma Center — 5800 | donors. Donors so far this month— 2485. Yesterday's quota—200. Yesterday's donors—97.
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.
day, and a full production basis opinion wieners rate first on the|cafeteria now churges for extra t each quartermasters’ list because wastage 'cups.
Degrees: will be conferred at al
to dependents of enlisted men in meeting of Daylight chapter N. 553, |O. E. S. at a meeting at 1:30 p. m.| Ledge said living costs have Friday in the Masonic tempie at!
the armed forces.
risen since the present allowance. 0
of $50 a month for a wife and $10
and Illinois sts. A tea will |
a month for each child was provid- [OIOW the meeting. Mrs. Oscecla
ed under a law which Begune, wWilisess is worthy
| matron and
Must Have Liked:
His Beans Warm
BOSTON, May 25 (U. P).—A 23-year-old coast guard. invader said today he and his comrades heated canned beans on the manifold of an invasion barge motor despite heavy enemy gunfire during landing operations in North Africa. Machinist's Mate George W. Klemchuk, Chicago, a purple heart medal winner who suffered a shrapnel wound in the right thigh at Fedala, French Morocco, during the North African invasion last Nov. 7, told of the incident. “We had about eight cans of beans warming on the manifold,” Klemchuk said. “We ate dog biscuits (hard tack) and every one of the barges was supplied with
| beakers of pure drinking water.
I guess I ate one can of beans during the long stretch from midnight until Jate the following aft-
American public. Anyone who had only. this film to go on would be quite certain that Russia is allied with us against Japan. A series of scenes is worked into the movie to convey this errcneous and dangerous idea—dangerous because it encourages wishful thinking assumptions on the Asiatic end of the war. Though Mr. Davies’ book characterizes the Japanese ambassador as “a very able man,” historians on the Warner lot have turned him into a clown. He is snubbed and ridiculed in a way that leaves no doubt in the onlooker’s mind that Russia is lined up with us against Japan. n n ”
To Laugh or Weep?
FOR REASONS of. space this sampling must suffice. I could easily extend the list into dozens
BELGIANS STILL SEE LEOPOLD AS LEADER
LONDON, May 25 (U. P.).—Bei-
god and believe that when the allies invade the country to free it
out of his palace to lead them, an
escaped from Belgium said today. He said the king is a prisoner on his estate but that Queen
Mother Elizabeth and Princess Josephine are allowed to visit homes established for starving children,
many of whom roam the streets looking like skeletons. Recently the Germans rounded up several hundred Jewish children whose parents are missing and “inoculated” them, he said. Most of them died. Tuberculosis was spreading rapidly, he reported.
ALLIES OPERATING TUNISIAN RAILWAY
ALLIED HEADQUARTERS, North Africa, May 25 (U. P.).— The allies. now are operating 800 miles of railroad in Tunisia, according to Brig. Gen. Carl R. Gray Jr., director of the general military railway service in North Africa. Some of the lines were in operation only two hours after they were captured from retreating axis forces, Gray added at a press conference. Gray is former executive vice president of the Chicago Northwestern railroad.
0. E. 8. TO GREET TREASURER
Reception ceremonies: for Sister Rose Malcolm, newly elected grand treasurer of the Indiana grand chap
gians look upon King Leopold as a |
from Nazi domination he will walk |
18-year-old patriot who recently
The audience is not informed that Russia sold coal and oil
and scores. One never quite knows whether to laugh or weep over the extraordinary twisting of facts. More pernicious than the specific distortions is the over-all falsification. Every Kremlin action and policy-—-past, present and future—is accepted with hurrahs, while the motives and actions of Britain, France, Poland and our own country are lame pooned and condemned. The Russian aggressions against Poland, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia are either slurred over in the picture or actually defended. But it happens that the American government, the president and American public opinion had been unequivocal in condemning those aggressions. It happens that we maintain full diplomatic relations with the victim countries. Mission to Moscow thus adds up to an outright attack on American foreign policies,” made the more remarkable by a constant subtle suggestion that it is a semiofficial picture, That is in striking contrast to the unbridled enthusiasm for all Soviet foreign policies, including the StalinHitler pact which started the war. The excyse offered by the Warner Brothers savants for that pact is that Stalin merely wished to gain time to arm. That, of course, was precisely the excuse offered by British and French appeasers in the preceding years. Why Soviet time-gaining is virtuous and British time-gaining wicked neither the picture nor the Davies book explains. Both appeasements, as we know, proved futile, so that the score is even in that respect.
Double Standard Curious
THE CURIOUS double standard of moral judgment—one for Russia, another for all other countries, not excepting the U. 8. A. — at points becomes grimly humorous. In Germany, for instance, the sight of marching civilians, extensive war preparations and propaganda efforts evoke Mr. Davies’ disgust. The very same things in Russia inspire him with unbounded joy. One of the first sequences in Mission to Moscow is set in the hall of the League of Nations. Haile Selassie is pleading for help against Italian aggression, and only Commissar Litvinov comes to his defense. The audience, alas, is not informed that Russia, in defiance of the economic sanctions imposed by the league, sold oil and coal to Mussolini for the prosecutionsof that war on Ethiopia. The sins of omission in Mission to Moscow are numerous. The most misleading of them is the failure to indicate that through the Communist International the Soviet regime has maintained and still maintaing its own fifth columns in America and all other countries allied with Russia,
(To Be Continued)
HOLD EVERYTHING
ter of the O. E. 8, will be held to- |