Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 29 June 1943 — Page 9
TUESDAY, JUNE 29; 1943
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Hoosier Vagabond
-. NORTH AFRICA (By Wireless).—Now the time ‘has come to talk about the mail. My mail, I mean. ‘Back in those first months in Africa I didn’t get any mail at all. My friends and family were writing all the time, of course, but the letters just never came through. It was terrible to go _ month after month with no word from home at all. But now the tide has turned. I am known as the man who gets all the mail. If fewer than six letters a day come in, I start pouting and they have to give me extra rations of jam at suppertime. ! I'm surprised the army postal system doesn’t use its influence to get me kicked out of Africa on the
grounds that I'm an impediment
: to the war effort, and also a nuisance. You folks who read the column have been thoughtful and generous in writing to me. You have written letters by the hundreds, and they have all been grand to read. You have written me in red ink, green ink, by typewriter and by pencil. You have cabled me and you have sent notes by friends pomine over. % There have been letters from general's wives, from aircraft workers, from old schoolmates, shipyard presidents, school kids, Pacific heroes, and hundreds of letters from mothers and fathers of soldiers In Africa.
a Histories and Advice!
MOST OF you have written only once, but there have been series of as many as 15 and 20 letters from the same person. One reader, a complete stranger to me, has written me oftener than my own family. I'm on several “buddy” lists of people who write weekly te 50 or 60 overseas soldiers. Some of you tell me your life histories or experiences in the last war, or what you are having for supper. You've given me remedies for sore hands and advice on how to break a pet dog of being battleshy. You've sent me drawings of improvised stoves
By Ernie Pyle
for pup tents, and you've asked me to call and have
dinner with long unseen French aunts in Oran and|:
Algiers. You'vé sent Christmas cards and sickroom cards and home-made poems and home-drawn cartoons. You've sent photographs of yourselves, and newspaper clippings by the ‘hundred. I could write a whole column about the unusual addresses you put on your letters. You send my letters to your husband's A. P. O. number, or in care of some soldier I have written about, or to the Stars and Stripes, or in care of Gen. Eisenhower, who wouldn’t know me if he saw me.
Censor Must Be Writing Too!
SOMETIMES YOU merely clip my picture out of the column and paste it'on an envelope. But most of you address your letters, just “Somewhere in Africa,” or “On the Tunisian Front.” The ironic thing is that many of these vaguely addressed letters come through faster than correctly addressed ones from personal friends. In tracking me down these letters go through many hands. I've had penciled notes on the outside of envelopes from soldiers I hadn't heard of in years And some mystery person keeps printing on letters that come from different parts of the country and at different times, but always in the same hand. My only conclusion is that it must be done by a censor. Of all people! Many of your letters make the rounds of a dozen units and get to me as much as six months after being sent. Just the other day I got one that was mailed in New York in December. The envelope was so covered with penciled notations that you could hardly find th: name. But what tickled me most was that some wishfully thinking postal clerk had sent it to three different prison camps, trying to locate me. It was all penciled out there on the envelope. One of the notations said, “Not at diplimary barracks.” If the army is going to make a criminal out of me I do wish they'd learn how to spell “disciplinary” first.
Inside Indianapolis By Lowell Nussbaum
WELL, HERE we are on the job again, all worn out after “resting” for a couple of weeks. We hope you readers enjoyed your vacation from this column. And we also hope all our agents get busy and start turning in juicy news items once more. As for our vacation, we took a train trip to the east coast, and our only recommendation is: If you don’t just HAVE to travel, don’t do it. If
you do, youll be sorry. And avoid’
week-end travel as you would the plague. . . . A few notes piled up while we were gone. . . . For instance, one of our agents was at the Uptown theater. President Roosevelt was talking in a newsreel on the screen. Our agent reports a 14-year-old girl leaned over and said to her mother: “I've heard that voice all my life”. . . The same agent saw a woman passenger on a College ave. streetcar close her eyes and fall into a doze while syeading the directions on a carton of pep-up tonic e was holding.
Use Stamp Troubles
CW. C. (BILL) ROGGE, chief testboard man for the A. T. & T. bought a federal use tax stamp the other day and, after licking the mucilage placed it on ‘ the Back of his rear view mirror. Then he discovered ; e’d made a technical error. The stamps this year “have the mucilage on the face, for use on windshields, and all that showed was the blank back of his stamp. Bill had to remove the mirror and steam the stamp off. . . . A. C. Flora of Columbia, S. C. president of the NEA, found himself in the midst of a minor crisis the other day. He had zipper trouble. His best suit, too. A Claypool bellboy searched the town over and finally found a replacement zipper, but he couldn’t find a tailor who had time to install it. A local schoolman, learning of the predicament, got in touch with Sam Freeman, advertising manager of Strauss’. Mr. Freeman found his own tailoring department was too busy to do the job, but he scouted around and found a private tailoring shop which
England
LONDON, June 29 (By Wireless).—Life on this advanced airplane base, which is what England is, has about it now a sense of security that was missing two years ago. This changed spirit is based on expectation ‘of victory, which was not so prevalent in the summer of 1941. Two years ago, England had just come out of one blitz, and was expecting a worse one with the longer nights of autumn. Many expected that gas would be used. When I was here in 1941, one high official diagrammed to me exactly how he thought the Germans would attempt their invasion. If they followed the best military tactics which he could devise, he was quite certain they would hold a temporary bridgehead and that England would fight a desperate battle fur her survival. : Now no such conversation is ever heard. Invasion is a word that now applies solely to the continent— ‘not to England. Arguments now usually center on whether Germany can be knocked out by air. Regardless of tablecloth strategists and of persuasive enthusiasm of both British and American airmen, both governments are preparing ground assaults to follow up air softening.
Germans Saying Strange Things
NEWS OF THE commotion which bombing is causing in Germany is printed here in black type. Strange things are being said over the German radio to the German people, and it is difficult to interpret them as enything except alarm over the increasing devastation of bombing. Yet we must remember that Germany is a huge . country. The Ruhr is the most important industrial tiny but there are others. Also there has been in-
My Day
NEW YORK, MONDAY, June 28.—I have waited to add my small tribute to the tributes of many other people who knew and loved ‘Mrs. William Brown | Meloney, because I felt that many others had known " her Jonger than I have and had a right to speak first. I have known her well only since she had begun her extraordinary fight against pain and illness, so always to me she will be the flame of a spirit which nothing, not even death, can extinguish. Many a time when I went in to see her, the words of a poem written by my aunt, Mre. Douglas Robinson about her sister, Mrs. William Sheffield Cowles, kept running through my mind, for— Mrs. Meloney was “a soldier of pain.” “Pacing each day, head high with gallant laughter, anguish supreme; ; accolade in what divine hereafter shall this
could and would do the job. That saved the day and proved to the South Carolinian that good old southern hospitality sometimes can be found in the north.
Around the Town
MAURI ROSE, the speed merchant, lives in a nice bungalow at 38th and Tacoma. He's had a picket fence around his home for months but never got around to painting it until about a week ago. He got about one-fourth of it done one evening.
The next morning he discovered an auto, out of
control, had run over the curb and ripped down a large section of the fence, including some of the painted portion. . Seen in a scrap metal salvage box at 38th and College: A sign reading, “Lowest temperature tonight - - - .” Slightly inappropriate in these days. . . . There are a couple of subtle signs on the lawn in front of a house in the 2300 block, College. The signs read: “Grass—Think.” , . . Have you noticed the big birdhouse just south of Fall Creek and just east of College? It greatly resembles our courthouse. Even to the pigeons roosting on it.
A Salute to the Ladies
A LAD, APPARENTLY about 13, stood in front of the light company generator station opposite the Federal building, earnestly studying the poster on “Women at War.” The poster shows a WAAC, a worker, a WAVE and homemaker, all saluting. The lad studied the four saluting women about three minutes, then drew himself to attention, gave a military salute, clicked his heels, did a right face and then marched down Meridian st. while passers-by watched respectfully. . . . A handsome silk flag donated to the Press club by Al Feeney was placed too near a large electric fan Saturday. The flag became wrapped around the fan, making a terrible racket. Immediately, three soldiers dining in the club jumped to their feet and raced over, shutting off the fan and salvaging the flag—practically undamaged. Two of the soldiers were S. Sgt. Max Schneider, formerly of The Star, and Pvt. George Schwinn of Rockville, We didn’t learn the name of the other.
By Raymond Clapper
dustrial dispersal, so that bombers will have to reach deeper into Germany, which will be done during the longer nights. Hardheaded Britishers probably don’t expect Germany to crack psychologically until defeat is clearly certain to them. Nevertheless, if Italy can be knocked out, that is bound to have a discouraging effect in Germany. The Britisher is taking all of this with the feeling that England is rapidly coming out on top. People are making money. You hear stories of families all in war factories making a total income equivalent to $150 or more weekly—which was unheard of" among English .v9rkingmen.
No Shu. ‘age of Money
HOTELS ARE PACKED. You have to make reservations early in the morning. Theaters are sold out weeks ahead. Night clubs are packed everywhere. The shortages in Britain are in food, clothing, gasoline and other articles, not money. The service is poor, food worse, but prices are high. An inferior meal costs a pound at a regular hotel, where the gouge comes through service charges. The difference I note between Britain and America is that war, with all its inconveniences, is taken much more in stride here than in America. Of course, they have been at it longer here—they went through the blitz, through fear of imminent invasiofi, so that deliverance from the extreme danger of two years ago is bound to make everything else seem minor by comparison. Another difference that many account for the contrasting behavior, is that here people are set to continue Prime Minister Churchill in office indefinitely, whereas .in America the political opposition is using every means under one administration to prepare for next year’s elections. War irritations make handy campaign fodder tor politicians to feed to voters.
By Eleanor Roosevelt
. “Through the long night of racked, walking, till the long day. Fraught with distress, brings but the same heartbreaking front for the fray. “In a far land our nation’s patriots, willing fought, and now lie, But you—as brave—a harder fate fulfilling, dare not to die!” One never came away depressed from seeing “Missy” Meloney. One always felt that the world was so full of interesting things that there was something important for everyone to do and she was urging you to do your share. I know that even in the future, if I am sometimes weary and think that perhaps there is no use in fighting for things in which I believe against overwhelming opposition, the thought of what she would say, will keep me from being a slacker. I do not want to think of Mrs. Meloney as dead. I want to think of her vivid spirit living on in those who loved her. Most of her messages finished with the same sentence. She used it to me and I am sure she did to all her other friends, and so I say “God love you, Missy dear.”
recurrent
e Indianapolis
i
Italians Friendly Even After Nation
Fought
With U.S.
XIV—-WAR AGAINST THE UNITED STATES JUST BEFORE the attack on Pearl Harbor, Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese in Rome made extremely friendly overtures to members of the American colony. The Japanese ambassador had invited practically all the members of the American embassy staff to a tea to be given Dec. 9
The Japanese counselor, Ando,
party and buffet supper in honor of American and Jap-
anese correspondents on Dec. 4.
In view of the fact
that it was only three days before the attack on Pearl Harbor, we believe that it was done deliberately to create a false impression of Nipponese friendliness toward Amer-
ica.
Similar parties, we confirmed later, were given at
" about the same time in Berne, Berlin, Madrid and Lisbon. Despite the difficulties in obtaining, in wartime Rome, large quantities of food and liquor for such a party, Ando produced a gourmet’s array of good things to eat and drink, including Scotch whisky, which the Japanese comn-
sumed enthusiastically.
Ando raised a glass of straight Scotch and solemnly
said:
“Here's to the continued friendship of America and
Japan.” We sat around and talked for nearly two hours, dur-
ing which all the Japanese repeatedly assured us that Japan would never go to war against America for any one of a number of reasons, ranging from Japan's lack of oil to the fondness of both Americans and Japanese for baseball. One grim note, however, slipped out—probably as a result of the whisky. Reynolds received a call from the office informing him that the Albanian government had just been reshuffled. Although Reynolds tried not to let the other correspondents hear the context of the conversation, the party quickly broke up as the Americans dashed off to their offices to deal with the story. = The Japanese correspondents, however, didn’t budge. One of them said to Reynolds: “Resignation of Albanian cabinet is no news. You no consider that important, do you? days you have big news.” Reynolds is still wondering if he was not extremely stupid to have put it down as the silly chatter of just another Jap in his cups. " = 2
Axis Plays Safe
WHEN THE attack on Pearl Harbor came, the entire American colony realized it meant war between the United States and Italy, as well as with Japan. Eleanor attended the press conference as usual on Monday and asked Rocco if there was any Italian comment. “Pending official confirmation of the events of yesterday,” Rocco said, “there can be no official or semi-official reaction to the newspaper accounts. There is nothing -more to be said at the moment.” The delay in axis reaction was owing to Hitler's and Mussolini's desire to make sure that the Japanese had attained an initial success. As soon as they were satisfied of that, they agreed on the axis declarations of war against the United States, which were made on Thursday, Dec. 11. We
‘were convinced that had the Jap-
anese failed, Italy and Germany would not have backed them up.
WAR BROKER SUES
WRITER FOR MILLION
WASHINGTON, June 29 (U. PJ.
—John P. Monroe, whose activities were investigated by a house committee inquiring into war brokers, toddy filed damage suits against]. columnist Drew Pearson ‘and the Washington Post.
He asked $1,000,000 damages in a
libel suit against Pearson, author of
the capital column “Washington Merry-Go-Round,” his defamation of character suit against the Post asked $350,000. The suit against Pearson mentioned an article of May 3 and a radio broadcast of May 9.
OFFICERS ARRIVE AT
PURDUE TO TEACH
Officers for the expanded army and navy training programs at Purdue university have arrived this week to direct the 1250 navy men and 965 in the army. Cmdr. H. J. Bartley, head of the naval electrician training school,
‘will head the extended program as
commanding officer. Other officers will be Lt. Cmdr. T. M. Kegley, in charge of the V-12 group; Lt. Robert O. Fulton, executive officer; Lt. C. O. Wells, educational officer, and
Capt. E. M. Whipple, in charge of the 450 marines in the Y-i2 group.
In few
When, on the afternoon of Dec. 11, we crashed through the cordon of police and detectives that surrounded the American embassy and got inside its portals, we had our first view of America at war. There was an odor of
smoke as documents were burned in the different offices. We phoned our house to tell our cook that we would not be home for dinner. The cook was clever enough to warn us by saying, “That is too bad. There are two gentlemen here waiting to see you . . .” before the receiver was banged down. We asked George Wadsworth, charge d’affaires, what we should do. Stay in the embassy indefinitely—if he would permit that— or go out and be arrested? He thought-awhile, and then said: “I suggest you get a .good meal here and then leave sometime during the night. It is better to get into the concrete mixer early rather than late. There is sure to be an arrangement made for all American correspondents, and it is better that you don’t make yourself special cases by avoiding arrest.” : 2.8»
IT WAS undoubtedly . sound - advice, but we were a bit hurt that he did not offer us indefinite shelter in the embassy, as at that time we expected an exchange would be worked out within a fortnight’s time. How wrong we were! At 1 a. m, Derby Durbrow, the press attache, took us to the stone gateway and said, “good luck.” We walked exactly five yards in the tarry blackness of a moonless Rome blackout when two men joined us and said: “We have orders to take you to to quéstura.” Ten days later, on Dec. 22, we and five other American correspondents were taken to Siena for internment. We went to the best hotel in town, the Excelsior, which was practically deserted except for a few other internees, and took our pick of all available rooms, - We could walk around the town, go into stores, restaurants, cinemas, generally followed by detectives.
Job's Daughters Install Queen
Miss Rosemary Selmier will be installed as honor queen of Bethel No. 1, Order of Job’s Daughters, in a public ceremony at Castle hall, 230 E. Ohio st., at 8 p. m. tomorrow. Miss Ruth Wise : will be the in- |; stalling officer, Other officers to be installed include Misses Joy Gullion, § senior princess; | Jane: Green, junior Piicess: Betty McClelland, guide; Miss Selmier Betty Jo Spencer, marshal; Sarah Mills, chaplain; Joan Jackson, treasurer; LaVerne Tacke, librarian; Rosemary Robertson, recorder; Maisie Love, musician; Patty Sloo, Madonna Alexander, Dorothy McClelland, Betty Mills and Dorothy Salisbury, messengers; Betty Vehling, senior custodian; Gretchen Moffitt, junior custodian; Donna Taylor, inner guard, and Margaret Rathert, outer guard. Miss Lou Ann Pfaff is the retiring honor queen.
REPORT ANTOINESCU VISIT LONDON, June 29 (U. P.).—Vice
Premier Mihai Antonescu of Rumania has left for Venice, Italy, to meet Italian Undgr-Secretary of State Guiseppi Bas Tiannini, axis
gave a lavish cocktail ,
"SECOND SECTION
ARIA} a]
124 NA AN LLL RL AL: 1 1
Part of the havoc at Pearl Harbor, pictured immediately after the Jap sneak attack. Only two days previously in Rome the Japanese counselor, Ando had invited the American embassy staff to a cocktail party, where Ando had raised a glass of Scotch and solemnly said: Here's to the continued friendship
of America and Japan!”
What impressed us the most about our four-month stay in Siena was the friendliness of the Italian people to us whenever we had the few contacts ever permitted. The clerks in stores were extremely friendly and were always giving us more than we were entitled to under rationing laws. Reynolds had to cease going to one of the cinemas because the ticket seller there insisted on giving him a free pass. » ” ”
Given Presents
“MY FIANCE is in America,” she said, “and I won't let any American pay money to see these old pictures.” Twice we received anonymous presents of champagne from Italian businessmen passing through Siena who merely signed themselves “friends.” The only trouble we encountered was from Fascist leaders who passed by and resented the fact that we seemed to be enjoying ourselves so much and were on such friendly terms with the hotel employees. All in all, the Siena group was treated quite well. The worst feature of our internment was the uncertainty of our departure. There were times when we all thought we might be held in Italy for the duration of the war. Finally, the exchange negotiations were completed and, early in May, we were taken back to Rome. We left Rome on the fourth and last diplomatic train, May 13, 1942. At the station, we continued to find evidences of Italian regard for America. Right in front of foreign office officials, a number of the carabinieri who were on
CHRYSLER STRIKERS
RETURN TO JOBS
DETROIT, June 29 (U. P.).—Production returned to ‘normal at Chrysler corporation’s Highland Park plants today when 2200 day shift workers reported at full strength after staging a one-day unauthorized strike. Ee The - spokesman said the men, members of the United Automobile Workers (C. I. O.), returned to work under’ an agreement to arbitrate grievances growing out of the sus-
pension of a union shop steward
charged by management with having “countermanded” company orders.
CHARGES ARMY USES PLANES FOR LUXURY
WASHINGTON, June 29. (U. P.). —The magazine American Aviation charged today that army “brass hats” and government officials are using. 21-passenger army transport planes in “solitary splendor” for week-end trips home, and demanded that planes the army took over at the start of the war be returned to overburdened commercial airlines. In its lead editorial the magazine said that facilities are so strained that even former President Hoover was deprived of his reservation by
a Siliiary PHESHY 3 few Works 980 at Denver. . ;
guard at the railway platform asked us to look up their relatives in the United States. One, who gave us the address of his brother, said: “Tell him I will join him in Brooklyn as soon as this war's over.”
French Await Our Troops
NEXT MORNING, the train halted in Nice. Ignoring the worried looks of our Italian guards, the French — porters, travelers, railroad employees, and newspa-
per vendors—gathered around us:
and talked quite freely. The substance of their remarks was that living conditions were unbearable, that they hated the Germans but had to try to get along with them because “a man must live, n’est-ce pas?” “Come back,” they pleaded. “When Americans come back, it
will mean we are rid of les boche.’
When American troops land in France, you will see that we mean what we say.” At Barcelona, which we reached around midnight, Spanish newspapermen came down to meet the train. Eleanor and Reynolds knew most of them from the civil war days. They avoided any discussion of internal politics but said most Spaniards hoped Spain could keep out of the present war. One said: j “Of course, if the Germans decide they want to try to take Gibraltar, I suppose we will have to let them come through Spain. Buf we hope we can stay out of it. We are in no condition to fight—hardly enough food, and our guns and planes were all used
up and worn out in the Guerra’
Civil.”
Dead Man Rides
Plane to Grave
‘ FLYING FORTRESS BASE, England, June 29 (U. P.).—Two men—one living and one dead— rode with the Flying Fortress “Quinine—the Bitter Dose” in the shell-splintered craft’s last minute. One was the pilot, George V, Stallings Jr., of Rowayton, Conn., who was willing to sacrifice himself by turning back to sea after the rest of the living crew members baled out on the English coast. The other was the dead radioman unidentified because of censorship rules. Stallings told of that last minute after coming back from Friday’s raid on northwest Germany where enemy fighters filled their plane with holes: “We wanted to get the radioman’s body overboard by parachute but it was impossible. So
out at sea I bade him and the’
ship good by. I managed somehow to keep the ship under control while I strapped on a ‘chute and then hurried down the open bomb bay. ‘Quinine’ circled me once, then plunged into the sea.” The radioman’s body went down with . the ship. Stallings, after being dragged a half-mile by his parachute in the water, unbuckled himself and swam a mile to shore, where a little old lady with a glass of warm rum met him and
said, “I've been: saving this for Just such an Session.” ;
But if’ the popular feeling toward the axis was lukewarm, the official attitude was extremely pro-Italian. When we arrived in Madrid the next afternoon, May
15, the U. P. bureau manager, Ralph Forte, told us that the Spanish censor had killed practically everything: we had sent from Barcelona, for fear it might offend the Italians. Actually, there had been nothing in our dispatches that an Italian censor would not have passed readily, because we were waiting for. the more liberal censorship of Portugal. We had worked in Spain long enough. to know the uselessness of trying to pass anything that might be construed ‘as a criticism of totalitarianism—but the Spanish censor was taking no chances. Around dinnertime, as we were halfway between Madrid and the Portuguese border, the train stopped in a small town about "half an hour, and we got a glimpse of how bad conditions in Spain were. Children gathered round the dining car windows, begging for. bread, and when the diners gave them some, pandemonium ensued. The shrieking and yelling brought other children and adults, and within a few moments nearly everyone in town was there in hope of getting in on the bounty. Begging in Spain had always been commonplace, but this was quite different because even respectable citizens took part in it.
NEXT: Italy's y's Grudges Against Il Duce.
(Copyright, 1943, by Reynolds and Fleanor Packard; published by Oxford University Press; distributed by Feature Syndicate, Inc.)
PARK ATTENDANCE SETS RECORD HERE
City park attendance set a new
record Sunday, Park Supt. Lloyd
Pottenger reported today. Mr. Pot« tenger said an estimated 50,000 picnickers, play seekers and swimmers overtaxed all municipal park facilities. Attendance at city swimming pools during the last two weeks already has exceeded half the total swimming attendance recorded for all last summer.
United 3%
HOLD EVERYTHING