Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 7 June 1943 — Page 8

MUDBOUND

SYMBOL

OF HOPE

Dutch Hold On Courageously at Lonely Merauke in New Guinea, Last Unconquered Spot of Fabulously Rich Indies.

By GEORGE WELLER Copyright, 1943, by The Indianapolis Times and The Chicago Daily News, Inc,

SOMEWHERE IN NEW GUINEA, June 1 (Delayed) .— Twenty times bombed by Japanese planes but still courageously holding on, little Merauke, mudbound rivermouth

port of New Guinea’s most

mosquito-bitfen swampland,

still proudly flies the red, white and blue of Queen Wil-

helmina’s lost Indies.

Merauke alone still is unlost.

And besides Holland’s lonely flag, on the staff of the sodden, swamp-surrounded port, flies today another red,

white and blue flag, symbol of the fact that ‘America has pledged itself to the recovery of Holland’s lost Indies.

Uglier even than the swamps of Gona, Sanananda and Buna is this little port where exiled felons were once unloaded, but which has now, by one of the twists of this his-tory-making conflict, become the residence of all Holland's hopes. To those who, like your correspondent, left part of their hearts with those brave Dutchmen of Java who stayed at Mr. Weller 410i posts with the natives—stayed to shovel excrement and pull rickshas at the command of their Jap conquerors, but stayed anyway—there is something touching about Merauke. As England was Germany’s Achilles’ heel, so Merauke, with its clouds of mosquitoes and fetid swamp odors, its white, circling pelicans and foul beach of yellow mud, is destined to become that place which, never taken by an enemy, will be the cornerstone of recovery. Jap bombers, coming probably from Babo and Fakfak, those fine, ready-made bases once used by Australian Hudsons with which the allied retreat presented the Japs 18 months ago, have done their dirtiest to smash little Merauke. Whether you approach Merauke by air or by sea—and so foul is the region of vast swamps stretching for hundreds of miles: back to New Guinea's mighty range that you cannot approach by land—you cannot fail to be impressed that freedom has chosen a strange vessel to endure in Merauke,

County Wilderness

"As one passes through Torres strait, flanked by the greenish waters around Horn and Thursday islands, and enters the Arafura sea over whose domination Jap, American and Australian airmen are still disputing, one is at the threshold of that old and cultured archipelago of Japanese influence. Yet here in Dutch New Guinea is a vast wilderness beside which Papua—no longer raw since America® has poured in millions of dollars in highways and airfields—is as civilized as a downtown American city.

Dutch New Guinea's doorstep is, instead of the glittering green, blues and purples of Australian Papua’s reefs, a 20- to 30-mile apron of foul, yellowish, muddy waters. Miles and miles of mud flats run far out into the ocean. Behind them are hundreds of miles of dank rivers crinkling the surface of the swamps. Trées grow in the ocean - and sharks swim into swamps. You cannot tell where sea ends and land begins. Such is that former colony of political prisoners — unconfined and working their small land holdings---that 1943 has chosen as the end point of the Japanese advance southward.

Millions of Mosquitoes

Mosquitoes! Your correspondent thought he had been bitten in every way a mosquito could bite until he met Merauke. Around that area of Gen. Douglas MacArthur's four M's: Morobe, Milne bay, Moresby and Merauke, there is every kind of malaria from benign, which leaves you shaky, to cerebral, which leaves you insane, and there is a mosquito to fit each. But Merauke’s are something special. When these light on your arm, they tilt their thick, black bodtes vertically for a straight downward drive. Instead of merely tapping you, they stab you with deliberate, muscular thrust. They fly far out over the yellow mud waves and enter boat portholes. Ashore, it takes 14 minutes with a flashlight to clean them from the inside of your hammock net before you can sleep. They patrol outside, singing in nasal fury at the appetizing odors coming from your naked, sweating body. If stirring in sleep, you touch your elbow tip to the mesh of net, they cluster instantly at the openings and pebble you with stings. Still droning in several tones, they go to sea with you and are still making final efforts to sting when the first cool night sea breeze sends them to death.

JOBS DAUGHTERS TO INSTALL NEW HEADS

Miss Joan: Eisenbarth will be installed as honored queen of Bethel No. 4, ‘Indiana Order of Job's Daughters, at 8 p. m. tomorrow in . the Castle Hall building. Other officers to be installed are: Rooker, senior princess;

Martha Marthe Rearic unor rincess; Miss =. nM ss Wilma Rooker,

MIL chaplain; Geraldine Tahar, treasurer; i alas Gersigin recorder. ¢ Glade will be installed miscian: ine | Sia Fisher, librarian; arie oS ise first. messenger; Jane McCullough, ‘second mes=-

's s ss Virginia Kennedy, senior cus-} Mi Magie Haye, ar custodian; Susie Black, a Suard; Miss - Lid

DISLIKE LAW ON U. S. EQUIPMENT

Bureau Heads Privately Admit Disapproval of Present Process.

: Times Special DENVER, June 7.—You can’t get fleld managers and bureau heads of federal enterprises to comment on this openly, but privately they are

out of fix with the new rules for

disposition of worn out or surplus federal equipment.

They say that instead of saving money and material, the new procedure in certain cases virtually compels the destruction of many thousand dollars worth of good and salvageable material, Recently local scandals were caused when equipment-hungry farmers found that huge amounts of tools—such as wheelbarrows, hoes, picks, shovels—as well as

had been burned in the closing down of five CCC camps in Missouri, Retrieves Material

From another similar dumping in Arizona a federal engineer indignantly retrieved a bent but useful table knife, stamped “U. S.,” as a sample of hundreds of table utensils thrown away, plus a radio and other furnishings, tools, etc. These instances could be multiplied, as could those where red tape has strangled efforts to move such equipment where it could be used for war needs in a hurry. Some months ago the salvage program for federal equipment was reconstituted under the procurement division of the treasury department, and rules were adopted roughly as follows: |

Process Set

1. When equipment, becomes surplus for any reason, the responsible bureau head must circulate a description among ether bureaus in the same department, describing and offering it.

2. Getting no takers (which is the usual thing) he must report it to the procurement division, which then circularizes all departments and bureaus which could conceivably have use for the stuff. This entire process takes from six months up. 3. Gelting no takers, the material can then be advertised, ap-

appraised prices. Now see the CCC situation: The camps were being closed down. They could not be left abandoned with federal material in them. Giving ‘it away is a penal offense. Disposing of it through the circuitous process outlined above would necessitate maintaining the camps for many months beyond the statutory abandonment date.

Burn Equipment

So local administrators in charge of liquidation did the only thing that appeared feasible, They certified the stuff damaged or completely worn out, and threw it over the dump or burned it for the scrap metal. Another angle is that U. 8S. marked stuff couldn’t very well be given away and thus widely distributed throughout a countryside, without giving possible future thieves a ready-made alibi. In one case, at least, the federal disposal rules have hampered the war effort. Around the site of a big new lake the government built 30 miles of new railroad, acquiring the old right-of-way which was to be submerged. Suddenly the railroad concerned got a hurry-up order for right-now trackage to a big war plant nearby, and sought to buy the good trackage and the 150,000 ties the government had salvaged. Could they? Yes, but not until after a month of frantic telephoning, telegraphing and cutting red tape where it could be cut, but still going through most of the formula above.

DINNER WILL HONOR HIGH OES OFFICERS

Brightwood Chapter O. E. S. 399 will give a dinner tonight in honor of Mrs. Bliss Fox of Bloomington, worthy grand matron of Indiana, Otto Cox of Indianapolis, worthy grand patron, ‘and Carl Wilson, worthy grand patron of Colorado. The dinner will be at Veritas Masonic temple, 3350 Roosevelt ave., at 6 p. m. Mrs, Sara Gardner and Mrs. Alice Dingle will be in charge. “At 8 p. m. a state meeting and initiation will be held. Mrs. Hazel Silvey Hill will be soloist. Mrs.

*| Charlotte Hodson is worthy matron

furniture and much other stuff}

praised and sold at not less than].

Army photo. WASHINGTON, June 7 (U. P.).—

The war department today disclosed that a new sub-machine gun, small enough to be carried in an ordinary brief case, is now in mass production, Known officially as the M-C submachine gun, the new 45-caliber weapon weighs less than nine pounds as compared to the 12-pound “tommy gun.” It is capable of firing 450 rounds per minute, The new gun is of all-metal construction and has a collapsible metal stock instead of a wooden stock. When the gun is in a closed position its length is only 22 inches.

PENSION MEETING SET

Old Age Pension Group 7 will hold a meeting at 521 E. 13th st. at 7:45 o'clock tonight.

present the diplomas, and Mr. Gin-

CINCERY TALKS AT CRADUATION

Washington High Seniors To Get Diplomas at ‘Tech Gym Tonight.

Members of the George Washington high school 1943 graduating class will hear their principal, Ww. G. Gingery, speak on the subject of “How War Has Made a Boy a Man” at the commencement exercises of the school to be held at 8 o'clock tonight at the Technical high school gymnasium. Students Martha Metcalf and Betty Gaddis also will talk. Miss Metcalf will speak on “A Craven or a King’s Son,” and Miss Gaddis will speak of “A Tribute.” Roscoe Conkle, president of the school commissioners board, will

gery will present the Riley scholarship medal. The Rev. T. E. Adams, pastor of the Washington Street Methodist church, will give the invocation. Members of the student commencement committee are Robert Flum, chairman; Martha Metcalf, Kathryn Landry, Richard Small, Leona Waldner, Don Robbins, Mary Ward and Richard Jordon. Officers of the senior class are Don Robbins, president; Robert Petracoff, vice président; Florence Newlin, secretary; Max Hutton, treasurer; and

Carl Roberts, sergeant-at-arms.

LONG-LASTING

Dog Is Avarded

Medal for Mercy

OGDENSBURG, N. Y,, June 7 (U. P.).—Penny, a mongrel dog who saved the life of a half-frozen partridge last winter, and who watched tenderly over the bird during its two-months convalescence, is about to get public recognition. A bronze medal, awarded by the New York state humane society, will be formally presented to Penny this’ week.

RURAL YOUTH CLUB T0 MEET TONIGHT

The Marion County Rural Youth club in a meeting tonight at 8 o'clock in the Farm Bureau building, 47 S. Pennsylvania st., will see two technicolor films, “Unfinished Rainbows” and “Amazing America.” A skating party at Rollerland is to be given by the club tomorrow, with Carl Mithoefer chairman. The 10th dance for service men sponsored by the club is to be held June 16 at the Riviera club. Guests will be about 80 soldiers from Ft. Harrison. The anonuncements of the dates for a ping pong tournament for club members will be anonunced by Miss Ann Jordon at a later date.

O. E. S. WILL INITIATE

The Marion County Past Matrons and Past Patrons association, O.E.S,, will hold an initiation meeting for the 11th district at Prospect temple Thursday night. Dinner will be served at 6:45 p. m.

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NAME OFFICERS AT KIRSHBAUM

Theodore Dann Re-elected President by Board of

Directors.

. Theodore R. Dann, Indianapolis attorney, has been re-elected president of the Jewish Community Center association by the board of directors. Other officers re-elected were: Charles S. Rauh, vice president; Marjorie F. Kahn, secreand Dr. Phillip Falender, treasurer. The association was organized in 1925 and operales the Kirshbaum Community center and the Communal building. The association's program is divided into three major parts: A complete program for service men and women is conducted at the Kirshbaum center with the assistance of the U. 8, O.; war services with the help and direction of the O. C. D., and the home front program of recreational and educational activities for men, women and children. J. J. Kiser, chairman of the committee for providing service men and women with entertainment, reported that over 70,000 had attended events given by the U. 8S. O. unit. The association is part of the Jewish Federation, which is a member agency of the community fund. The following members of the board are serving in the armed forces: Herbert Backer, John Efroymson, Robert Efroymson, Tevie Jacobs, Julian Kiser and Liebert

NEED TEACHER AT SUNNYSIDE

At Sanatorium. Sunnyside sanatorium today is-

i [sued a call for six or more licensed

teachers who will volunteer to ace cept regular positions as private tutors of convalescent patients, R. J. Dearborn, principal, said the school is amply financed by the

i | state and will give a full year’s em=

#¥ | ployment to all new staff members,

* Jackie O’Brien and Kappy. do their bit for war by rolling ‘around in this wagon reminding housewives to save kitchen fats.

Mossler., They have been made honorary directors. The new directors are: Joseph M. Bloch, Meier S. Block, Rabbi Israel Chodos, Theodore R, Dann, Julian Freeman, Mrs. Victor Goldberg, Jack Kammins, J. J. Kiser, Charles S. Rauh, Max Plesser, Sidney Mahalowitz and David Sablosky. Appointed to take the place of the directors in the service are George Frank, Phillip Grenwald, Norman Isaacs, Mrs. Lewis Levy, Leon Levin and Irving Ruben,

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He said teachers who are now sube stituting and those who married and retired would be acceptable. The patients at Sunnyside have requested instruction in almost every high school and college sub ject. ‘Instructors in colleges and public schools and other friends of education are requested by Prine cipal Dearborn to aid the sanae torium in its quest for teachers,

NAVY ACTS TO BUY » SOUND EQUIPMENT,

Lt. Richard Morey Jr. naval ade viser at the Indianapolis WPB ofe fice, said today that there was an urgent need for 200 communication receivers to be used by the navy at the front. Ba | The navy is seeking the Halle crafter SX28 or SX25 or similar types, either with or without loud speakers, Lt. Morey stated. Persons having such equipmen$ are requested to contact Lt. Morey

at the WPB office,

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