Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 6 December 1944 — Page 13

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| :Front-Line Health By B. J. McQuaid

(Mr. McQuaid, war correspondent for The Times, is substitutiig today for Ernie Pyle, who will return w

active duty in the Pacific soon.)

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. WITH U. 8. 9TH ARMY FORCES, Geérmany.— Try this to cure your cold: Lie for four or five days in a mud-filled foxhole in the middle of a German cabbage field under driving tain and sustained fire from Nazi machine guns.

You may get a hole in the head but you probably wori't have a sign of a cold. * . Medical records on this bitter Siegfried line war at the Roer river show pneumonia, bronchical and tonsilitic infections and other forms of respiratory.-.ailments but no such maladies as influenza and® la grippe. The chief surgeon of the 19th corps, Col. C. W. Rumpf, Fairifault, Minn., has the answer. The common cold is a civilized, housebred ailment. = “These men bring .to the job youth, rigorous training and above average physique,” said the colonel, with whom I sought an interview after discovering that not a single man had shown up on the sick list from the entire platoon. .

Dangers Emphasized

* LT. COL. C. M. KNAPP, Larchmont, N. Y, with Whom I also talked, said: ’ ' “It would have been trenchfoot, not flu, if any of the men had contracted an illness.” .- | Maj. A. F; Cullison, Akron, O., said: . “Trenchfoot incidence is not yet seriously high in this corps, but we are trying to emphasize its dangers to avoid its becoming so.” ’ _ Trenchfoot is stagnation of blood circulation. Soldiers contract it when forced to allow their feet to get

HERE'S AN INCIDENT we'll bet never was dupli-

" eated in Nazi Germany. An engineer working alone

in the WFBM transmitter station, near Ft. Harrison, saw a man standing sutside, so he stepped to the door. He was quite startled when he noticed the . visitor wore the familiar prisoner a of war uniform. “I'm a prisoner of hb war,” the man explained, in fairly good English. “My truck broke down. I wonder if you would call the fort and. ask them to send someone after-it.” When he asked where the guard was, the engineer was told: “Oh, we haven't any guard. There are just the two of us—both prisoners. The other prisoner stayed with the truck.” Ft. Harrison was duly notified and a little later someone from the fort came and escorted the prisoners and their truck back. When we heard the story, we thought it a little unusual—to say the least—to find Nazis traveling around in a truck without a guard, more than two miles from the boundary of the military, reservation. A call to the fort failed to give much satisfaction. The provost marshal’s office appeared not to have heard of the incident. Asked if prisoners of

_ war were allowed to drive trucks without guards, the

provost marshal referred us to public relations. There, a Capt. Johnson said he never had heard of the incident, but added that prisoners are not allowed off the post “with or without guards.” That's as far as it got. We realized we were up against the “old army game.” Just the same, we don’t like the idea of prisoners of war—even “nice” ones—wandering around without guard.

It's Not Istanbul

DURING THE “Put and Take” radio quiz program Sunday, the master of ceremonies mentioned that Constantinople was the former capital of Turkey and asked the name of the present capital. No one could guess. The master of ceremonies then announced, we're told, that the capital now is “Istanbul.” That's an error. Istanbul is the modern name of Constantinople. The present capital is Ankara. . . . Another reader called attention to a headline in yesterday's

America Flies

TWO HUGE new gliders — each half again larger than the largest army air force glider now in combat — are now undergoing tests, air technical serv{ce command, Wright field, Dayton, has announced. One of the

enormous sky-freighters, the XCG-10A, will carry six tons. The other, known as the XCG-16, hauls a payload of five tons. It requires a four - motored transport of the C-5¢ (Skymaster) type to “snatch” the fully loaded XCG-10A but only a normal pickup and landing area is necessary. The cargo carriers, which may help reduce air-freight rates materially in peacetime, were developed by the Glider branch of the ATSC Aircraft Laboratory to meet combat-taught requirements for gliders capable of delivering heavier and bulkier squipment by air. A fully assembled 155-mm, Howitzer or a 2%:-ton fruck can be carried easily in the XCG-10A, a highwing monoplane with & broad, deep fuselage curving back from a rounded nose, :

.105-Foot Wing Span wo

CALLED EVERYTHING {rom a. “whale” to a *pollywog,” the big glider has a wing span of 105 feet and is 67 feet long. Its huge cargo compartment is almost 30 feet long, seven feet high and 8% feet wide. Huge clamshell doors under a single tail boom provide access to the interior. This tail boom runs from the rear top of the fuselage to a conventional tail assembly.

My Day

WASHINGTON, Tuesday~I lunched yesterday with the members ‘of the American Newspaper Women’s club, ey reminded me of the fact that they were pelebrating for me approximately °nine years as a eolumnist! It was rather a

;

as I had not

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) & . wet and cold and then to stand on them for pro-

. director, and ‘Al Porter, headquarters general facto-

longed periods without changing to dry footgear. A mild numbness and tingling are the first symptoms. But 4f not attended te, the condition will ‘so disable the ‘soldier that he will be unfit for further service and will be subject to retusning attacks at the slight~ est provocation for the rest of his life. In extreme cases, gangrenous conditions develop, sometimes necessitating amputation, .

No Good Remedy

“IT'S AS TOUGH to lick as the common cold,” said Col. Rumpf. No one has discovered a good remedy for this oldest of wartime. maladies.” The medical men of the 19th corps have introduced a procedure which makes it practical for even the most advan combat troops to get some degree of protection d@gaifist trenchfoot. One pair of dry socks is now being delivered each day to every soldier at the front. They go forward with the daily hot ration which the American army delivers to all combat men each 24 hours. . n posts behind the front lines, who contract trenthfoot through carelessness or indifference, get little sympathy from medical men. ‘This negligence puts them almost in the class with the man who delivers a self-inflicted wound. Col. Rumpf assured me that, in general, despite thé advent of winter weather, overall health statistics show little if any increase in the proportion of nonbattle casualties. There is a seasonal increase in such ailments as trenchfoot and respiratory diseases

_ The Indianapolis

but this is largely offset by an accompanying sharp decline in gastrointestinal complaints, diarrhea and dysentery, familiar in summer.

News. In large type it read: “Women Favor War on Pigeons.” Just beneath jt, the “deck” in smaller type, read: “Stinebaugh Appeals to Give Youth a Chance.” The story explained the confusing headlines: The Indianapolis Council of Women went on record favoring war on the pigeon hordes, and at the same meeting they heard an address by Virgil Stinebaugh, school superintendent, on “Education for leadership in home and community life.” . . . One of our agents reports he was in a Massachusetts ave. restaurant eating breakfast the other morning when a man came in and placed some packages of cigarets in the vending machine. Our agent hurried to the cashier to get some change and when he returned he found the woman manager of the place getting cigarets. She got not one package, but many. When our agent asked for a chance before they were all gone; she replied: “These cigarets are for our customers.” Our agent was so astoupded he forgot to mention he was both a customer of the place and a representative of the OPA.

A Confusing Situation

A SIMILARITY in names caused a bit of confusion at Methodist hospital recently. Paul Sheehan, a Curtiss-Wright employee, took his wife, Mrs, Frances Sheehan, to the hospital's maternity ward a week ago, and left her there. He returned a short time later and asked: “How is my wife—Mrs. Frances Sheehan?” Replied a nurse: “Oh, she’s fine, and so is the baby.” “Baby? Already?” asked Mr. Sheehan. “Oh, yes; didn’t you know? - The baby was born several days ago.” The surprised Mr. Sheehan asked some more questions and found there were two women on the same floor, both named Frances Sheehan. Both are the mothers of baby sons. The other Mrs. Sheehan ts the wife of Bill Sheehan, a printer for The Times. . . . While cleaning out a desk at Republican state headquarters, Bob Kyle, the new G. O. P. publicity

tum, found under the bottom drawer a dust-covered bottle of pre-war apple brandy. It bore the old style revenue stamp, and probably had been in the desk 10 years or so. When Bob showed it to Secretary Claude Billings, Claude opened up the new rule books and cited a rule making Billings custodian of all party properties. That was the last Bob saw of the bottle.

- By Max B. Cook

Two tail booms are used in a glider for the first time on the big XCG-16, a high-wing monoplane which is almost a “flying wing.” It uses an airfoil section as a fuselage, the latter occupying the wider center section of the wing. The twin booms extend out to a single tail surface and vertical fin. ‘Wing span is 91 feet, nine inches and length is 48 feet, three inches.

Cargo Floor Hinged

TWIN PLEXIGLASS doors supply the leading edge of the center fuselage section and they lift upward by means of hand-operated jacks. The forward section of the cargo floor is hinged and lowers forward for use as a landing ramp. A structural riblike wall separates two cargo compartments. A jeep can be carried in each section or one 77-mm. Howitger. Each cargo section is 15 feet long and almost seven feet wide and tapers from a maximum height of five feet to 2% feet. Pilot and co-pilot are seated in tandem in a cockpit atop the fuselage section. The XCG-10A was constructed by the Laister~ Kauffman Aircraft Corp. of St. Louis. It was first flown by Capt. W. F. Sauers, project officer. The XCG-16 was originated by Hawley Bowlus, well-known glider enthusiast of Los Angeles. ATSC engineers modified the original in design and specifications and it was constructed by General Airborne Transport, Inc, of Los Angeles. Wright field subjected it to structural tests at Dayton and it was first flown from the army's Oxnard, Cal, flight strip. Then it was ferried cross-country to the Clinton County, O., army air field. Flight tests are being conducted there,

By Eleanor Roosevelt

It was crowded as usual, so I am sure it was a great success. o In the evening Judge Robert Marks, my husband's old friend from Cincinnati, who is staying with us, had dinner here. Then I dashed off to speak at the forum run by the WAVES in their barracks near

Inside Indianapolis By Lowell Nussbaum

‘SECOND SECTION

PROPHET GUESSED RIGHT ON INVASION A FULL YEAR AHEAD OF TIME—

Hitler Should Have Read That Book

By JOHN W. HILLMAN

SX MONTHS ago, the allied armies under the command of Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower landed on the coast of Normandy. That ended a world-wide guessing game, ’ For weeks, and months, the barber-shop strategists had been advancing their pet theories in answer to three all -absorbing questions: Will the allies invade Europe? When will they strike? Where will they land? The amateur experts weren't the only-ones who were guessing, either. Hitler and the German high command were very adn much interested, too.

It was their business to be.

to guess when and where Eisenhower would strike and to prepare their 1efenses accordg ingly. . 3 Exactly what Maj. F. C. Miksche they guessed will not be known until the historians dig into the German archives after the war is over. In the light of subsequent events, however, it is obvious that the Nazi leaders guessed wrong on at least one of these important questions. , » » . THEIR AIR observation must have convinced them ‘that there would be an invasion. It was hardly a secret that tremendous

supplies and millions of men had been assembled in England and these troops and material ‘clearly were theré for one purpose only --an invasion, + On the second problem, the Nazi strategists could come close to the right answer and still face a tremendous handicap in planning their defense. They may have guessed that the invasion would come early in June, and on the basis of tide and weather conditions, it would have been a logical guess. But still they had thousands of miles of coastline to watch. That meant that their available defenders must be spread thinly in relation to the striking forces. » = » THE REAL $64 question, then, was: “Where will the allies invade?”

That closely guarded secret was the key to the success of the invasion. If the Nazi high command knew where Eisenhower planned to land, they could mass overwhelming force there and keep them feady at all times to throw the invaders back into the sea. But they didn't know. They could only guess. That's why the allies now are storming the approaches to the Rhine, fighting on German soil. » ” »

THE GERMANS guessed wrong. They thought that the landings would be near Calais. Even after the allies were ashore in Normandy, Rommel held back sizable forces to counter an attack oh thé Calais coast. That attack never came. The invasion plan, showing where and how the landings would be made, was the secret that turned the trick. It would have been worth millions to Hitler, } Yet that plan was published a full year before the invasion actually was made. From 1943 on, Nazi agents could have bought a copy through any bookseller in England or America. » . .

THAT PLAN is shown, and shown in considerable detail, in a book by. Maj. FP. O. Miksche, a Czech officer attached to the French forces. The title of the book is “Paratroops.” It was published in England by Faber & Faber, Ltd, and » America by Random House, ne. The author ranks with General DeGaulle as one of the prophets of modern warfare. In 1936 he resigned his commission in an artillery regiment of the Czech army and volunteered for serv. ices with the Republican forces in the Spanish civil war. He commanded an artillery unit manned by volunteers of the International brigade and aided in the organization and, training of the new army which took the field for the Spanish republic in 1937. Later he served on the general staff and saw tested by both sides the strategy which became the basis for world war II tactics. » » .

THESE observations he embodied in a book, published in England under the title of “Blitzkrieg” and in America as “At-

It was their job

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 1944

Areival aerodromes of er air trains, (Ist Paracros Division)

Fighters screeping aerodrome

DISTANT,

Acrodromes of the Distant Support air force units,

‘Landing area (2nd Division

JVprorT Ain tones.

Departure aerodromes of the Ist Para. troop dibision. (Including close support

Paratroops moving towards aerodrome:

{rconvoys protec by fighters

air force.) p_

donee Neutralisation of “ defenders serodromen

In this map on page 141 of his book, “Attack,” published in 1943, Maj. Miksche accurately forecasts the pattern of the invasion as it took place on June 6, 1944. The dark shaded areas indicate landings, the upper one a combined attack from the sea and air—as explained in a previous map in the book—and the lower two airborne landings by paratroopers and glider forces who sealed off road junctions and prevented the Germans from moving up reinforcements to attack the troops on the beachhead. The light shaded circles indicate targets for bombers and aerial reconnaissance of the movements of the enemy—the outer screen of the invasion. At the top is the coast of England, s rowing the organization of the air arm of the attack. (Map reproduced by courtesy of Random House, Inc.)

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Sv A PN OR wi

This map, published in The Times of June 8, 1944—three days after the first landing—shows how closely the actual invasion followed Maj. Miksche’s plan.

tack” — a searching analysis of tank warfare, He served in the early days of this war with the French and escaped to England in 1940. “Attack” was published in 1941. “Paratroops” two years later, ana-

lyzed the_.use of air-borne.troops by the: Germans in the invasions of the Low Countries, the Balkans and Crete. In discussing the use of paratroops, Maj. Miksche presents two maps showing a combined invasion by air and sea. The area is not identified, but its contours are clearly those of the Normandy peninsula. J » ” THE SPOT marked for the landing from the sea is almost the exact location where the allied invasion was made — a year after the book was written. And the plan for having paratroops and glider troops land inland and seal off important road junctions also was the same as that followed by Eisenhower. And these landings, incidentally, are the reason why Rommel was

not able to bring up reinforcements to counter-attack against the troops on the beaches. That strategy also is fully detailed in the book. i » » » NOT UNTIL the military leaders write their memoirs will it be known whether Eisenhower and the allied staff adopted the Miksche plan, or whether the Czech expert, by accident or with prophetic insight, forecast the probable location of the invasion, If the former is the case, the allied cause owes much to an obscure officer for fathering the strategy of the great landings. But if Miksche's book was only a guess, with no relation to the actual planning, the people of the united nations may well be thankful that such an accurate forecaster was on our side, Hitler could have used a sooth«sayer like that, _ . - 2

Barnaby will be found today on page 21.

Last of Flying GI Brothers Abroad

THE LAST SURVIVOR of the flying Ragsdale brothers has gone overseas to get his share of com-

bat flying. He is Flight Officer Robert Ragsdale, one of three airmen

song of Capt. and Mrs. John Paul Ragsdale, 345 N. Ritter ave. He could have stayed in the

“United States permanently under

the new government ruling that any family having two or more sons killed in action may request that their other sons be kept in this country. But the Ragsdales have always allowed their children to make their own decisions. His brother, Lt. John Paul Rags dale Jr. ,was killed in May, 1943, when s Flying Fortress exploded in midair during a raid over Emden and Wilhelmshaven, His other brother, Sgt. Edward M. Ragsdale, died when his parachute failed to open after his plane had engine trouble near Salina, Kas.

TWO

TEE, Bi

THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS

By Laurene Rose Diehl

AND SAWDUST YOu BET

I wiLL! LL TAK JUST Se--WERE N

| Hot Battle

‘both camps.

PAGE 13

Labor Western Union Election Stirs

By FRED W. PERKINS WASHINGTON, Dec. 6.—~Elec~ tions Jan, 2 to 10 among 60,000 Western Union employees, on = whether they want to be represented in collectivé bargaining by the Commercial Telegraphers’ ufijon (A. F. of L.) or the American C o m munica- § tions associas . tion (C. 1. 0.), already have produced much more than a contest between these two labor bodies.

Both the A. F. of L and the C. I. O. are throwing men and money into a scrap that will be of national importance. The national conventions of both recently gave extended consideration to this fight. C. 1. O. President Philip Murray declared ‘hat Western Union is the C. 1. O's No, 1 organizing job, and a resolution urged that “all unions participate actively in the drive by distributing literature, contacting friends and relatives in Western Union, making organizers available, and taking responsibility for delivering the vote in small communities.” » » »

THE A. F. OF L. president, William Green, called on “every labor representative” to “come to the assistance of the telegraph operators in this historic fight.” Charges are flying thick, and Western Union employes are being deluged with propaganda from

"A TC. I. O charge is that the commercial telegraphers’ union is in the status of a “company union,” and that the Western Union people need the aggressive C. 1. O. leadership. The C. T. U. counters with the charge that the American Communications Association is “Communist-dominated.” » » .

W. L. ALLEN, president of the A, P. of L. Telegraphers Union, ° “told his ‘A. F. of L. hearers that this election campaign is “most bitterly contested” and “something more than a national labor relations board election” because: “It is a contest to determine whether the employees of vital communications in this country

shall be represented by an American ;

power.” ; Communists are barred from membership in the A. P, of L. union, under its constitution, and the A. PF. of L. campaigners are distributing Dies committee findings on the political records of the rival C. 1. O. organization.

We, the Women— Courtship Vows Are Campaign

Promises, Too

-By RUTH MILLETT AFTER 19 YEARS of marriage, a New York woman broke a promise she made her husband before they became man and wife. 8he resumed her career as a social service worker, which she had said she would never do. The husband asked for an annulment of the marriage on those grounds — but

the supreme "TX Thar court ruled a against him. ! And a good A J ’ thing, too

Husband and wives promise each other a lot of 1 things before marriage that they never live up to.

Some because they were nothing more than campaign promises, anyhow. oo » » . . THERE probably wouldn't be a valid marriage in the land if not living up to pre-marital promises ; were deemed grounds for annulment of the marriage. y

Just think of the men who were going to give their wives “everything” some day -and-who finally settled down to the “I can’t give you everything but love, baby" _ philosophy. 3 Look at the women who were going to become wonderful cooks and perfect housekeepers, but never quite got around to it. . . .

LOOK dt the men who once °

_see any pretty woman ‘who comes along, even if she is a block