Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 16 July 1943 — Page 11

FRIDAY, JULY 16, 1943

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The Indianapolis Times

SECOND SECTION

Hoosier Vagabond

> ABOARD A U. S. NAVY SHIP OF THE INVA(8ION FLEET (By Wireless, Delayed).—Our ship has been in African waters many months but this invasion is the first violent action its crew has ever been through. I've come to know a great many of the sailors aboard and I know they went into this thing just as soldiers go into the first battle— seemingly calm but inside frightened and sick with worry. It's the lull in the last couple of days before starting that hits you =o hard. In the preparation period vour fate seems far away and once in action you are too busy to be afraid. The night before we sailed I sat in the darkness on the forward deck helping half a dozen gailors eat a can of stolen pineapple. Some of the men of our little group were hardened and mature. Others were almost children. They all talked seriously and their gravity was touching. The older ones tried to rationalize how the law of averages made it unlikelv our ship out of all the hundreds in action would be hit. They spoke of the inferiority of the Italian fleet and argued pro and con over whether po many has some hidden Luftwaffe up her sleeve ghe might whisk out to destroy us. Younger ones spoke but little. They talked to me of their plans and hopes for going to college or getting married after the war. always epilogued by the phrase: “If I get through this fracas alive.”

‘All Scenied Pathetic

WE ALL seemed terribly pathetic to me. Even ‘the dizziest of us knew that within less than 48 hours many of us stood an excelient chance of being » this world no more. I don't believe one of us was WW of the physical part of dying. That isn't the way it is. Your emotion is rather one of almost desperate reluctance to give up Yrour future. I suppose that seems like splitting hairs and that it really all comas under the heading of fear. Yet somshow to us there is a difference. These gravely vearned-for fuiures of men going into battle include so many things—things such as

By Ernie Pyle

seeing “the old lady” again, of going to college, of staying in the navy for a career, of holding on your knee just once your own kid whom you've never seen,

of becoming again champion salesman of your terri- | tory, of driving a coal truck around the streets of] Kansas City once more and, yes, even of just sitting

in the sun on the south side of a house in New Mexico. When you huddle around together on the dark decks on your last wholly secure night it's these little hopes and ambitions that make up the sum total of your worry at leaving rather than any visualization of physical agony tomorrow. Our deck and the shelf-like deck above us was dotted with little groups huddled around talking. You couldn't see them but you could hear them. I deliberately listened around for awhile. Every group was talking in some way about their chances of survival. A dozen times I overheard this same remark: “Well, I don't worry about it because I look at it this way. If your number's up then it's up and if it ain't you'll come through no matter what.”

A Guy Has to Say Something

EVERY SINGLE person who expressed himself that way was a liar and knew it but, hell, a guy has to say something on the last night. I heard oldsters offering to make bets at even money we wouldn't get hit seriously. Somehow it seemed sort of sacrilegious to bet on your own life. Once I heard somebody in the darkness start cussing and give this answer to some sailor critic who was proclaiming how he'd run things: “Well, I figure that captain up there in the cabin has got a little more in his noggin than you lave or he wouldn't be captain, so I'll put my money on him.” And so it went on that last night of safety.’ T never

heard anybody say anything patriotic like the story-| books have people saving. There was philosophizing|

but it was simple and undramatic. would have stayed ashore if given the chance. There was something bigger than the awful dread that would have kept them there. With me it probably was an irresistible egotism in seeing myself part of the historic naval movement. With others it was, I think, just the application of plain, ordinary, unspoken, even unrecognized, patriotism.

Inside Indianapolis By Lowell Nussbaum

AN ATTRACTIVE BLOND, about 20 or so, sat in a cross seat at the rear of a Central trackless trolley, y outbound, Wednesday evening. Suddenly, without any apparent reason, she crossed her legs and began idly swinging her foot against the leg of a woman sitting on a side seat just in front of her. The woman moved 1er legs but was unable to avoid being kicked by the girl This continued until the woman got off at 33d st. Then the girl reverted to normal behavior until the trolley got to 36th st. where she got off. But before she stepped off. the girl leaned over and hung a haymaker on the jaw of a man seated near the side door. The man dazedly rubbed his jaw, muttering: “What's the matter with that girl? Is she crazy?” Then looking at a couple pf giggling girls across the aisle, he asked: “Are there any more of those in this car?” Such crazy carrying on!

Blackout Impressions

\ THE BLACKOUT produced not only confusion, but also many humorous incidents. For instance, at Central and Ft. Wayne aves, along about 8:30 Wednesday night, several young fellows standing on the corner imitated sirens vocally. The operator of a passing trackless trolley heard them and pulled over to the curb and turned out his lights. Passengers argued but he insisted the blackout had sounded and he had his orders to stop. Finally, after much wrangling, and when none of the business houses turned out their lights, he decided he'd been fooled, and proceeded. . . . E. J. Moore, personnel officer 5» for the district OPA, was on 2a streetcar with his wife and his 11-month-old child when the sirens sounded. The infant disapproved of the blackout, yelling leudly, and Ed spent nearly an hour walking

In Africa

ALLIED COMMAND POST, North Africa, July 16— (By Wireless).—The biggest single factor in the rapidly progressing occupation of Sicily is control of the air. Because we have it much is possible. If we had not been in command in the air we could not have escaped the most devastating losses. Hundreds of ships were massed in the narrow waters of the Mediterranean for the invasion. Their presence undoubtedly was known to the axis through reconnaissance. On the night of the invasion, allied pilots said, the sea was black with ships. One said they were spread out for 40 miles. Only allied command of the air prevented the axis from bomhing those ships in large numbers, We would not nate dared to mass them that way if we had not been certain of our ability to keep the axis air force off of them. Landing on the beaches would have been a massa= ere like that at Dieppe if the trocps had not been protected by the supremacy of their own air forces. Beach landings traditionally have been regarded as extremely costly. The landings in Sicily resulted in relatively few casualties considering the size of the operation, The enemy just wasn't around.

Meet Few Fighter Foes

SINCE THE invasion our pilots have been cruising _ all over Sicily meeting comparatively few fighters. The chief trouble has come from anti-aircraft fire. There is considerable mystery as to what has become of the axis air force in Sicily. Recently large numbers of enemy aircraft were observed on the fields in Sicily yet it never came out to fight or to attack allied shipping concentrations. As one of the bomber pilots said, our planes were reduced to twiddling their wings at each other. At

‘My Day

SEATTLE, Wash, Thursday.—Last night I flew into Seattle, having been busy all day in San Francisco. we went at once to the Oak Knoll Naval hospital. They now have a complete dental room and are doing very excellent work for the men who need it as part of their general hospitalization. Then we went through a number of wards and I saw many new boys and some of the patients that I had seen on my last visit. It is encouraging to see these boys improve and change from mere skeletons racked by fever and pain into human beings well on the road to recovery. Youth is a great asset, but certainly modern © ~-ments of war can play havoc with the most wonderful constitution. As we stopped

LO IT 4 a i er

Adm. Reed called for me at 9:30 a. m. and _

the streetcar floor to pacify the baby. . .. Our personal impression of the blackout is that every dog on the north side of town was yvapping his head off— probably at the moon. You could hear them for miles.

It's a Crazy Town

OUR AGENTS report monument circle was a busy place during the noon hour yesterday. On the west side of the mounment, a crowd gathered to watch a voung man strip off his shirt and trousers (he had swimming trunks under the trousers) and jump into the west fountain, swimming around a while. At the same time, over on the east side of the monument, a group of WACs were cavorting while another WAC operated an amateur movie camera. She had all sorts of trouble with passers-by walking in front of the camera. . . . A jeep driven by an army corporal and with six white uniformed sailors stacked aboard pulled up to the curb at 16th and Pennsylvania. The six sailors untangled themselves and got Off ts vehicle, meanwhile thanking the corporal profusely for the ride. Then, as the jeep drove away, the sailors paired off and dusted each other's white trousers.

A Hole-in-Eight

JOE WIRTHLIN, traffic manager for Silver Fleet, made a hole in one last Saturday on the 12th hole— a water hole—at Hillcrest. Joe went back the next day to try to make another. He went into the water twice, and wound up with an 8. . . . Capt. Bill Engler of The Times’ advertising staff has cabled Mrs. Engler that he has arrived overseas from an Atlantic port. He's intelligence officer for a bombing squadron. . . Looks like we suckered on an item yesterday—the one about the bride sending wedding invitations to big shots and getting a set of silver from one of the du Ponts. Two of our agents promptly and disgustedly told us they'd heard the story, with variations, at least a year ago. Sorry folks. Everybody makes mistakes. We admit ours,

By Raymond Clapper

times it seemed as if our planes were in more danger from each other than from the axis, especially the new Mustang A-36 fighter-bomber which resembles the German ME-108. Lt. Col. John D. Stevens of Laramie, Wyo. who led a fighter-bomber mission over Sicily on Monday afternoon, said, “They all have run for cover.” You could see miles of empty roads with only an occasional truck, he said. “I saw a nice shiny automobile,” he related. “It must have had a big shot in it. I wanted to come down and plug it but a hill interfered and I couldn't get at it.” A photographer, back from a mission over Sicily, said the line of fires extended back many miles into the interior.

Each Plane Has Its Value

OUR FLYING Fortress is the most discussed plane, but in Sicily the medium bombers, Marauders B-26, Mustang light fighter-bomber A-36, Lightning P-38 fighter, which also does some bombing and reconnaissance, are proving in their respective fields to be just as valuable as the Fortress in its. We are producing great airplanes and the evidence already is written in history. But greater than the planes are the pilots and crews. You can hear them around the field, bragging about their respective ships as though they had personally designed them. It takes Ernie Pyle to tell adequately about these pilots and crews, about the gunner who had a leg almost shot off yet still held his gun and not only shot down an ME-109 but took a picture to prove it; or about the heroic work of Fight Officer Stanley B. Farley of Madisonville, Ky., who as co-pilot brought in a B-26 after the pilot was killed. Farley had to pilot the plane with one hand and hold the pilot's body off the control with the other. When you see these men with their cool matter-of-fact skill, not strutting around as heroes but sitting around in greasy work clothes talking shop between missions that are pounding cracks in the ‘axis wails, you have had an experience you will never forget.

By Eleanor Roosevelt

it” My own surmise is that the boy is only 17, and he has seen a good bit of fighting in the Southwest Pacific.

This hospital has developed a small family wing since I was last there, which makes a great difference to the enlisted men who know that there is a place where their wives and family can be taken care of. Oak Knoll, of course, is entirely new and it grows by leaps and bounds. Some 3000 men are now being taken care of there. Mare Island is old and established and the construction is permanent. While it has increased in size, they are now trying to cut down on their number of patients. They have some orthopedic cases there and a shop in which braces, legs and arms are being made. : 1 take my hat off to the way the work is being done in these hospitals. 1t is one of the things we can be very proud of. There is no question in my mind but that our boys are getting. the best of medical care son's for

and excellent nursing. I went to my rh ; Jf the childre ! and

I'm sure no man

$ Our Town:

CHAPTER 111.

Samuel Osbourne's sudden disappearance, and the mystery surrounding the event, revived the whole Os-bourne-Vandegrift controversy including Fanny's subsequent marriage to Robert Louis Stevenson. Everybody took sides, a situation brought about largelv by a sensational article in the New York World written by that paper's hyperbolic California correspondent. It revealed things never known before: The fantastic claim, for instance, that Sam was present when Fanny

married Stevenson. What's away the bride, his ex-wife, with a heartiness of manner that might have been expected in the most disin-

terested person. This scoop was widely copied by newspapers all over the country and didn’t escape the eyes of Mrs. Virgil Williams, the only outsider present at Fanny's second wedding. By this time Mrs. Williams was a widow sojourning in Boston. She permitted the Globe to interview her. “Is it not queer.” Williams, “what stories will get into circulation? This one is much a mistake. A more noble man than Mr. Stevenson never lived nor can his wife be reproached in any way.” ” » 2

Sam Was Her Target

THEN SHE lit into Sam, which was really the purpose of the interview. With lady-like restraint she called Sam a notorious story-teller and pointed out that he made anywhere from $10,000 to $15,000 a year, but spent it on anybody except his own wife and children. As for Sam's giving away his ex-wife at the Stevenson wedding, there wasn’t a word of truth in it, she said. She went even further and insisted that Stevenson and Osbourne had never met. Asked what she Sam's mysterious disappearance she gave it as her considered opinion that he was not dead. “I think he is congenially situated and living under an assumed name,” she said. Again newspapers all over the country, including our own, copied and circulated the Williams interview. Three weeks later The Indianapolis Journal published a letter written by somebody living in Greencastle and signing himself “Justitia.” Whoever he was, Justitia had a high regard for Sam, and by implication a mighty low opinion of Fanny. The climax of Justitia's apologia was a claim that Sam went to France during the second year of her stay there in the hope of persuading her to return home with him, a tidbit unknown or suppressed up to that time. ”

Justitia’s Story

“THE CHILDREN would gladly have come,” said Justitia, “but his wife refused and he returned alone. When the three years were nearly expired, in the fullness of his joy at the prospect of their return, he put decorators at work making fresh and pleasant the home, and the gardeners and florists fixing up the grounds and when all was ready he took the train and proceeded a hundred miles to meet them; was received with tumultous joy bv his children, but by his wife with a dignity and constraint.” I have quoted Justitia's exact words at some length not only because of the author's righteous indignation, but also because of his breathless style and predilection’ for commas. Taken together with what we now know of the

Men Without Names Allied Invasion

began Mrs,

thought of

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(Tenth of a Series)

By NAT A. BARROWS

LONDON, July 16—In Belgium and throughout all the countries overrun with Germans, the underground movements this week are spreading new courage among the millions by their word of mouth and clandestine press the allied action in Sicily. Caution against premature exposure of strength is being emphasized with warnings not to believe rumors about “local invasion day,” which the axis is circulating assidiously. The people are constantly being told that ample notice will be given when the time does arrive. Meanwhile, the Germans are putting out false reports in attempts to trick underground agents and other patriots into revealing themselves. Belgians Old Hands The Belgian underground repeats precautionary warnings about bringing resistance into the open too soon but it is merely routine. The Belgians learned 25 years ago how to conduct their resistance against the Germans

Mr. Barrows

reports Of |

more, that he actually gave

technique employed in the Higher Criticism, the quotation ought to be enough to establish Justitia's identity. When that happens, it may be possible to write Samuel Oshourne’s complete story; perhaps a story in which he comes out better than a villain. So much for Sam.

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Chicken, Hoosier Style

TO RETURN to Fanny. South Sea Islands cruise turned out to be a big affair. Originally planned as a six months’ trip it lasted several vears. Their first extensive stay was at Honolulu (1889); thence to Samoa and Sydney. From Sydney, after voyaging to many islands, the Stevensons returned to Samoa, bought an estate named Vailima on a mountain slope in the island of Upolu and decided to stay there for good. From 1891 to the day of his death he lived at Vailimh, building a great house where he dwelt with a feudal dignity not unlike that of Walter Scott at Abbotsford. Stevenson was beloved by all the natives who called him “Tusitala,” teller of tales. He took an active interest in Samoan affairs and became, by force of his engaging personality, a real power in the land; to all of which Fanny contributed her part—even to the point of teaching the natives how to prepare young chickens, Hoosier style.

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Her

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Dies in Two Hours

THE END came suddenly. On Dec. 3, 1894, Stevenson was mixing a salad when a blood vessel burst in his brain. He lost consciousness immediately and died within two hours. The Samoans carried his body to the top of Vaea mountain—the highest hill anywhere around, where he lies buried. A rugged monument made of huge blocks of poured concrete marks the spot today—a spot set right in the fighting zone of world war II. Fanny dictated what was to go on the tomb in the way of inscriptions. One tablet carries the lines of her husband's glorious “Requiem”; the other, the Samoan words of “The Resting Place of Tusitala.” The only ornaments on the grave are two carved symbols: The thistle for Scotland and the hibiscus for Samoa. Fanny thought up both. Stevenson was 44 years old when he died. His amazing marriage had lasted 14 years. Measured by any and all standards, it was a happy and successful marriage. Only once was there anything approaching a rift. That was when Stevenson started writing “The Strange (ase of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” Fanny didn’t like the drift of the thing when he read the first draft to her. She left the room and wrote a detailed criticism, as it then stood, pointing out her chief objection—that it was really an allegory whereas he had treated it purely as if it were a story. Fanny took the paper to her husband and left the room. In the course of an hour his bell

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The Tiger Lily

ANTON SS

CHERRER

Courtesy John Herron Art Institute.

The famous portrait of Robert Louis Stevenson by Augustus Saint Gaudens. It was modeled in 1887 when Stevenson was desperately ill in New York. The replica in the Herron Museum was cast especially

for the Art Association of Indianapolis and carries an inscription to that effect.

the placque closes with the lines:

rang; on her return she found him sitting up in bed (the clinical thermometer in his mouth) pointing with a long denuncitory finger to a pile of ashes. Stevenson had burned the entire manuscript. ” ” ”

Bettered or Butchered?

IT WAS WRITTEN again in three days, this time more to Fanny's liking. Whether Fanny bettered or butchered the book is a debatable question. Less depbatable is the suspicion that “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” as finally written, revealed the moralistic influence of the Indianapolis Third ward school, to say nothing of the Hoosier temperance movement made famous by Fanny's two examples of didactic art. Fanny survived her husband almost 20 years, She returned to California and almost immediately felt the itch to build. She was not her father’s daughter for nothing. In San Francisco, she acquired a hill commanding a glorious view and built an unbelievably huge house reminiscent of the architecture of early Florence. Fanny herself said it looked like “a fort on a cliff.” Here as Robert Louis Stevenson's widow, she held court with the pomp of a pope and a splendor not unlike that of a reigning queen. While the San Francisco house was under construction, Fanny went away on a camping trip in the Santa Cruz mountains down among the redwoods. Carried away by the scene, she built another house. Her third and final contribution to architecture was the Santa Barbara house, a remodeling job. ® x»

EXCEPT FOR several {rips to Mexico and a grand triumphal

of Sicily Starts Fresh Breath Of Hope Sweeping Over Underground Europe

need for caution are not enough to hold down surging spirits as news of the Sicilian campaign reaches the Belgians,

Violence has shown a marked increase this week in such typical examples as these: Three German gendarmes were killed by patriots . . . 16 Germans were executed to avenge the death of eight hostages shot in reprisal for the “underground” killing of the Rexist burgomaster of Charleroi . . . six Begina outmaneuvered German guards and blew up three power cable pylons at Bois St. Jean Ourgree, Liege. . . . The Germans have arrested 120 Belgian policemen on the charge of assisting the underground, Complete Unity

In no other Nazi-occupied country is the underground so completely united and unpolitical as in Belgium. Belgians here say that even the idea of politics is dead—resistance is the only party now. Catholics, protestants, Jews, communists and anti-clerics work together in their undercover battle against Nazi terror. All Belgium knows that the Germans are trying to drive a wedge between French-speaking and Flemish-speak-ing districts and the knowledge brings the nation even closer. Sabotage is increasing under the inspiration of allied movement nearer the continent but the underground still permits only skilled agents to handle vital jobs.

populated, with an intensive transportation system of railroads, canals and highways, Belgium provides fertile fields for the operations of saboteurs. The Belgians think that

“they have built up their planned

destruction of the German industrial machine more scientifically than has been dore anywhere else. Saboteurs are often trained engineers or industrial experts. They avoid spectacular stunts in preference for less dangerous but equally effective blows from within, Newspapers Typical Typical of the skill by which the underground operates is the unfailing delivery of the clandestine newspaper La Libre Belgique, to the Oberfeldkommandantur (Nazi commander of occupation troops in Belgium) each fortnight. Then there is the example of the underground worker, who used his job as a driver for a gestapo automobile to deliver copies of underground papers. He got away with it for nine months before they shot him. Belgium braces itself against the enervating tortures of the old enemy and prays for enough strength to hold out until the allies can bring about deliverance. In no country where men and women wait for freedom is the national spirit and soul more determined to cutlast the fiendish German horror. Through its strongly co-ordinated underground, Belgium snipers cleverly work and prepare for the giving of aid Hh comfort to the allies

We have come the primrose way. Life is over, Life was gay,

tour through Europe, including a visit to Grez, which she reviewed with half-closed eyes from beneath a widow's veil, Fanny spent her last year in and around her three California homes. She gardened scientifically, dabbled in photography, puttered in the kitchen and wrote. Fanny's literary career began when she was still a girl with fairy stories in “Our Young Folk:” and in the early numbers of “St. Nicholas.” In collaboration with her husband, she wrote “The Dynamiter.” While living in the ranch house among the redwoods she began the introductions to Stevenson’s works in the Biographical edition issued by Charles Scribner's Sons. They are signed F.V.de G. 8S. '

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Ashes in Husband's Tomb

As examples of restraint, modesty and reserve they are models of their kind. Toward the end of her life, Scribner's and McClure's magazines published a number of Fanny's stories. “Anne” and “The Half-White” were the two to attract most attention. “The Cruise of the Janet Nichol,” possibly Fanny's most ambitious effort, was published after her death. The end came suddenly, almost as suddenly as that of her husband. On the morning of Feb. 18, 1914, Fanny's maid. found her mistress unconscious in bed. Six hours later she was dead. The “Stormy Petrel,” Stevenson's pet name for his wife, was 74 years old when she died. Pursuant to her request, cremation followed. on on = A YEAR LATER Fanny's children carried their mother's ashes

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The recorded poem on

to Samoa to place them in her husband's tomb. With them they took a bronze tablet recording the final stanza of Stevenson's “Songs of Travel” (No. 26), the one dedicated “To My Wife’:

“Teacher, tender, comrade, wife, A fellow-farer true through life Heart-whole and soul-free The August Father Gave to me.”

In addition, two ., *vholic carvings identfy Fanny's grave. On Stevenson's tablet, you may re-

member, the thistle for Scotland had been carved at one corner and the hibiscus for Samoa abt the other. Fanny's children wanted to do as much for their mother. It wasn't as easy as you'd think.

The hibiscus was appropriate for one, but the other symbol gave them a good deal of trouble. It could have been the edelweiss of Switzerland to re= call the days in Davos-Platz, where Stevenson began the writing of “Treasure Island,” a story he thought up to please Lloyd, his 12-year-old stepson, who had challenged him to write “something interesting”; and it might just as well have been the fleur de-lis of France or California's poinsettia.

One night while crossing the Pacific with her mother’s ashes, Isobel suddenly remembered a story her grandmother had told her. It was the inspiration she had been hoping for; with the result that Fanny's side of Stevenson's tomb embraces not only the hibiscus, but also a realistic carving of a tiger lily to recall the backyard garden of the “little red house” on the circle.

THE END.

SYNTHETIC RUBBER USED FOR SPONGE

Synthetic rubber sponge has been developed that will stay soft and compressible at 40 below zero. It is supplied in black slabs or molded shapes for many wartime uses. The problem of making ordinary rubber products that would stay

flexible at subzero temperatures had already been solved, but making a sponge compound with the same properties was more difficult job. "”

Awards 'Stripes’ To Smart Nazi

By UNITED PRESS The Swedish newspaper Arbetaren said that a German worker named Heigehorn of Dortmund has been sentenced to three years’ imprisonment for suggesting that a monument to Reichsmatshal

Hermann Goering should be erected in the much-bombhed Ruhr district, the office of war information revealed today. At the start of the war Goering promised that Germany would never be subjected to aerial bombing.

MAGNETS DETECT FLAWS

Magnetic metals are tested forinvisible cracks and flaws by putting them in magnetic fields; the edges of any cracks become magetic poles

causing iron powder sprinkled on to collect st

‘lke’ Asks Phrase On African Drive

EASTON, Pa, July 16 (U. P.) — Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, allied commander-in-chief, found only one thing missing in the North African campaign, it was revealed today in a letter to Prof. Albert H. Gilmer of Lafayette college. Gen. Eisenhower's letter, commenting on Prof. Gilmer's research on Col. Charles E. Stanton's “Lafayette, we are here” phrase, said: “It was a grand phrase, and I only wish we had one that would tell as succintly the story of the allied occupation of North Africa and succeeding events.”

HOLD EVERYTHING