Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 14 March 1945 — Page 9

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1, 1945

dies

yourself

Hoosier Vagab

IN THE WESTERN PACIFIC (Delayed).—Now

T've had my first experience as a salt-water doughboy. ‘T'll try to tell you about it in a few thousand well-

‘chosen paragraphs

This, series will be about life aboard ah _airplane

glaring in the tropic sun,

waved their green The island. was green water. And of snaw-white sul

carrier. -My carrier was part of that first strike on the Tokyo area, and we helped out at Iwo Jima, too. we'll start right at- the beginning; and within the’ limits of naval security, I'll try to tell you what living on an aircraft carrier

is. like, and how a big task force

works when it goes out after the enemy. fy First we boarded a plane and flew for a long time, and landed on a tiny coral island, white and Tall slanting palm trees fronds from their topknots. ’ framed in a wide circle of bright that was bordered by a thin line f, where the rolling waves beat

themselves to a froth over the submerged reef at the

edge of the water,

And on beyond that, everywhere

as far as the eve could see, was the heavy dark blue of the deep, deep ocean. '

Hundreds and Hundreds of Ships

AND OUT ther

United States fleet The navy says offi centration of figh history of the wor breath away.

True. I have seen bigger fleets.

vasions of Sicily ar But they were no they were landing

e on that dark blue water, lay the . Hundreds and hundreds of ships. cially that it was the greatest conting ships ever assembled in the ld. It was something to take your

Both in our in1d of Normandy we had more ships. t predominately warships. Mainly craft and troop-carrying vessels.

But these here were fighting ships—the world’s

mightiest. Battles uncountable destro

hips and cruisers and carriers and vers. And all the swarm of escorts

| and tugs and oilers and repair ships that go with

them.

And this wasn't the only fleet, from other anchor thousands of {ime<table schedule, so that they would

hundreds and stariec on i

Others started ages scattered out over the Pacific, miles from us. They

all converge in the upper Pacific at the same time.

ond

By Ernie Pyle

If you had felt lonely and afraid.in anticipation of the ordeal upon which you were setting out, it disappeared when you made yourself a cell in this] mighty armada. . For when we bere down upon :the waters of Japan and Iwo Jima, we were nearly a thousand ships and we were beyond a half a million men! Whatever happened to you, you would sure have a | hell of a lot of company. :

On One of Our Small Carriers A SMALL FAST motorboat, its forepart covered with canvas like a prairie schooner, took me from the island to the carrier to which I had been assigned. It| was a long way out, and we were half an hour bobbing | up and down through the spray. ; | Ships were so thick we had to weave in and out | around them, ~The water was speckled with small| poat§ running from ship to ship, and back and forth | to the island. The weather was hot, and sometimes] you stood up and took the spray, because it felt good. | No ship in wartime has its name painted on it.| Instead, they go by numbers. Every ship in the navy | has both a name and a number, but its. name is hidden for the duration, All carriers look alike to the | neophyte, so you pick them out by the number on the bow. I had asked to be put on. a small carrier, rather than a big one. The reasons were many. For one| thing, the large ones are so immense and carry such a huge crew that it would be like living in the Grand | Central station. { I felt 1 could get the “feel” of a_ carrier. more | quickly, could become more intimately. a member of |

the family, if I were to go on a smaller one.

Also, the smaller carriers have had very little credit and almost no glory, and I've always had a sort | of yen for poor little ships'that'have been neglected. And also again (although this of course had noth- | ing to do with my choice, of course, of course) there] was an old wive's superstition to the -effect: that the | Japs always went for the big carriers first, and ignored | the little ones. i Further investigation revealed this to be pure fic- | tion, but what you don’t know at the time doesn't hurt you, and I didn’t know.this at the time. ’ So gaily. I climbed aboard my new home-—curious, | but admittedly uneager for my first taste of naval| warfare in the Pacific.

8 [side Indianapolis By Lowell Nussbaum

MRS

the 1irst

LUCY HOPKINS, 3051 College, didn’t see robin or have the first crocus, but. she's sure

she has seen the first butterfly. It was in her back«

yard Monday.

peeve 18

. Ralph (Scotty) Armstrongs pet

the person who greets him with a solicitous,

“How aje.you?” and then walks away fast or starts off on another subject before Scotty gets a chance to describe his ailments (if any) in detail. If they don’t want to know, why don't they just say “Hello,” grumbles Scotty. . . . A man who said he was a longtime reader of this column walked into The - Times® yesterday and asked Cashier John Cromie to give Old Inside a message. Said he: “1 think this business of the young girls going around with

‘one sock up and one down is the silliest thing yet.”

He didn't leave his name—just the message. .

+.» The

March ‘issue of the Farm Journal and Farmer's Wife includes a story (P. 48) on dwarf fruit trees. Al-

though not credit

local newspaperman, Bob pruning one of his own dwarf trees. .

ed, it was written by Bob Kyle, One of the illustrations shows ., . Mary

| ‘Carney, 3251 College, relays a yarn about one of the’

. feminine streetcar

Wasson's, she” say

morning. Suddenl

middle of the block. . fo see what had happened. Then they saw!

operators. Frances Hutchison of 's.© Was. ono swpeetcar the other y, the streetcar was stopped in the Passengers craned their necks The gal

operator opened the door and yelled to a woman friend who was walking on the sidewalk. “Hi, honey!

Where vou going?” And then the car moved on.

conversation sagely observes Mi

ter where they are.

They had a nice backyard-type Women, ss Carney, will be women, no mat-

Hope 1t Works

HERE'S hunters: E. M.. Ph

A TIP for

Paul Brown and his pigeon illips. 2935 E. 35th, sends in a clip-

America Flies

LAREDO ARM

Y AIR FIELD, Tex. March 14.—

Bullets crashed against the glass cockpit window of the RP-63 King Cobra fighter only inches from my

tace.. grinned as their t

in’ the ifistory of

Uricle Sam's topnotch aerial gunners actually

rained fingers pressed the triggers

and poured hot lead at me. Two hours later, as waist gunner on a Flying Fortress, I took my turn at pouring lead. High _ in the sky over Texas my chattering caliber .20 A machine-gun threw streams of bullets at diving, slipping, zooming attacking RP-63 King Cobras and hit them twice. It was part of the army ajr jorces training command's first demonstration of' three of the most vitally important .developments in flexible aerial gunnery aviation combat. They are:

First, the heretofore highly secret frangible bullet

wirich is making 1 bat conditions students shoot it fighter airplanes,

over

yossible duplication of actual comthe fighting fronts. Gunnery as live ammunition at attacking

Specially Processed Armor

SECOND, A, SPECIALLY processed armor plate, 1060 poungs of which is used to protect the fighter 8 plane and against which the frangible bullets disintegrate at high velocities :

+ And ‘third, a hit-indicating {'pin-ball

mechanism

to indicate immediately to the gunner whether, he is

My Day

MONTREAT, N. C., Tuesday. ~The Hon. Josephus Daniels gave us such a warm. welcome yesterday that

it was heart-warmi

ng to be with him, and he arranged

our day so that we had some rest in spite of doing

many things. We

left his house at a quarter before

11 and went to the governor's mansion; which is a very beautiful old house, with thick walls and beautifully proportioned, highceilinged rooms. : There Mrs. Cherry, the K governor's wife, greeted us at a morning coffee hour given by the Business and Professional Women's club and the Altrusa club. * A few-iminutes-after- 12 we

“started hack to Mr. Daniels’ house,

broadcasting statio

where at 12:30 I was interviewed for 15 minutes over the local n. At 1 o'clock Mr. Daniels gave

"a lunch, and from 2:45 to 3:15 I met with the women of the state legislative council of Noeth. Carolina. This group of women represents the heads of many

Entei pe

'Montreat Inn, which housed the families of some 5) returned to their native lands, .

ping from a Spokane, Wash, newspaper indicating Spokane, too, is trying to do something about the pigeon problem. The story says county commissioners | there have authorized installation of an electronic device hailed as the igeal pigeon eliminator. The device, described as a pigeon Whistle, is reported to produce a whistle pitched so high that it is inaudible | to humans but most distracting to pigeons. Keep an eye on the results, Mr. Phillips. . . . Cleveland's pig- | eons: seein to be bothering Joe Collier, formerly an Indianapolis Times staffer, now reporting for the! Cleveland Press. In a story on spring, Joe, an old | pigeon authority, says: “Without spring, pigeons probably would die out of their own accord. But with spring they fall in love. A compatible pigeon couple (they are monogamous), normally fond of each other, will hatch and rear four to six offspring] a season, beginning in the spring. reserves to make monkeys out of all the trappers bent on ridding the Square of the birds.” |

Just Help Yourself

S. J. FERRIS, who runs Ferris’ Food Market, 2157 N. Talbot, has solved the problem of how to keep his customers satisfied despite the shortage of cigarets, It used to be quite a problem to keep customers from | getting angry because “you sold Mrs. So and So al pack and now you haven't any for me.” Then one day when he had no.cigarets to sell, a woman came

and Msked: “Can't you just'give me a single ciga-| :

ret?” She seemed so happy to get it that Mr. Ferris decided he'd just give ’em all away—one at a time. | Breaking open four packs, he dumped them in a box and put a sign on it reading: “We don’t have enough | to sell, .so we give away what we have. Help your-| self to one.” The first day, hardly anyone would take one—thought * it was a practical joke. But pretty soon they caught on. Now, he gives away about a carton. a day, and there's a steady stream. of regular customers into. the store, up to the free cigaret box, and on out. “I don't care whether they buy anything or not, just so I can keep them satisfied,” says Mr. Ferris. :

By Max B. Cook |

on the target and give him an exact record of nis| An electric signal beacon on the i

number of hits. fighter plane's nose lights up when a hit is made | and nférks it up on a register on the pilot's cockpit. | Thus the gunner is enabled to correct his aim at |

once,

Learned the Hard Way

PRIOR TO PERFECTING this new flexible gunnery system, gunners.shot dt towed sleeve targets or “shot” cameras at attacking fighters. They never knew exacily and immediately when and how they made mistakes and could not immediately correct them. They could not be perfectly trained for aerial | combat. They learned—in battle—the hard way. Now, as a result, aerial gunnery efficiency is reach- | ing a new high. And, according to Lt. Gen. Barton | K. Yount, commanding general of the AAFTC whe walched the demonstration here, it will improve daily. | The frangible cbullet and its application to gunnery | training, along with the secret. process for treating | armor plate to withstand it, is the brain child of |

| | |

Those are enough |

Bb i RRR fri dt 5 3a BX RE 3 ri ER TE (PS > fe SEER VF Lown RENAE AEE

SECOND SECTION :

NAMES OF GIRL DONORS ON BOTTLES THRILL WOUNDED MARINES—

By WILLIAM McGAFFIN

Romance May Flow

Times Foreign Correspondent A MARINE DIVISION HOSPITAL, Iwo Jima, March 14.—Romance may bloom from the pints of whole blood being into Iwo Jima for transfusion to wounded marines. Most of. this blood _ is being donated by young women, whose names«dre written on tags attached to the bottles.

Addresses and telephone numbers are not included. But these, presumably, can be obtained from the San Francisco and Oakland chapters of the Red Cross, which

| are sending the blood.

on n ”

THE YOUNG chap in charge of blood stocks at this hospital, 2-¢c- Pharmacist's Mate Edward H. Reinhart, of Shepherdstown, W. Va, says the marines get a great kick out of the ided that they are getting transfusions of blood donated by the girls back home. “A lot of the fellows put the name of the girl on their bottle in their wallets and say, ‘I'm gonna look that baby up when I get back,” said Reinhart. ” ” " THERE are two other division hospitals on Iwo, but this is-the first time whole blood has been used in any marine operation in the Pacific. The first time it was at all in the Pacific area was during Gen. Douglas MacArthur's Leyte invasion , Before that been used. Plasma will keep indefinitely, whereas whole blood will Keep only 21 days, It must be constantly packed in ice But the doctors here are enthusiastic over the advantages of whole blood over plasma. n ” ~ THE RED CROSS, which Is responsible for blcod shipments, is doing further. valuable service through representatives on the spot. > These are Thomas, Talladega, Ala. Red Cross men take. daily surveys of the wards and distribute

blood plasma had

flown

headed by “ Bruce

, tion,

e Indiana

From the Blood

polis "

¢. “WEDNESDAY, MARCH 14, 1945

Casualties from the bloody fighting on “Hell's Acre"-—Iwo Jima-—are being given first aid treatment and plasma injections by navy doctors and corpsmen at an aid station set up in a gully on the island.

The heavy toll of wounded necessitatéd the use of many gallons of plasma—contributed by

back home.”

plenty of cigarets, candy, shaving equipment and other miscellaneous items. This hospital is equipped with 350 beds and where a case is too serious to be disturbed by evacua-= it is treated here. Two teams of surgeens—working 12-hour shifts around the clock—perform operations in dust-proof, airborne portable operating rooms—a marine specialty. te a8 = THE CHIEF surgeon Says:

“We have had everything in tlie book and some things not in the book. We are getting away with things civilian surgeons

“would consider very exceptional.

There have been some very exciting incidents here. One night an ammunition dump near the hospital was hit by a shell and blew up.

was riddled, the patients was

The hospital tent but none of hurt. Another night five Japs casually walked down the road past the hospital A guard - challenged them. They didn't answer, so he shot and killed one. The other four escaped ; td ” ” QUITE a few wounded: Jap prisoners have been treated. Most seem grateful. But one night one tried to escape. He was stopped by a marine patient. The_health of our troops here has been excellent. - There has been no scrub typhus, no bacillary dysentery, no common colds, all of which were expected. The climate was declared healthy -after a six-man squad under the direction of malaria specialist Lt. Cmdr. Henry J. Fre-

gosi, Proctor, Vt. hunted insects CoP)right, 1040 by The Indianapolis

CIVILIAN TO 2-STAR RANK IN 3 YEARS — THAT'S SVERDRUP—

(First of a Series)

By LEE G. MILLER Scripps-Howard Staff Writer LEYTE, P.1. (By Air Mail).—In said, “You'll want to be sure to see Gen. Sverdrup.” \ At Hotiolulu they said, “By all means look-up Sverdrup.’ In New Guinea they said, “This

Washington they

, Sverdrup is a natural for a news-

“ paper story.” I caught up with Maj. Gen. .Leif John Sver= { ‘drup here when

% from Luzon for / a quick confer- “ ence. We had a : couple of .con-

i versations. And

2 believe me, Mr. Mille there's. no lull when

in the talk you .pump the general about his work. Gen. Jack Sverdrup is one of a very few pre-Pearl Harbor civilians to attain two-star rank—he got the second star in February. And when you consider that he was born in Norway, and didn't come to America till he was 17 (he's 48 now), that is comething for the book. » FJ » HERE 1s a man who entered the army as a colonel early in 1942 and since has won a dis-

i He few down

Horatio

Alger

Gen. Sverdrup (left) pauses for a rest and a picture as he and his Australian guide inspect the New Guinea jungle looking for a right-

of -way for a road.

tinguished service cross, a distinguished service medal and a silver star, and has been promoted over the heads of eligible West Pointers. He is second man now to Maj. Gen. Hugh Casey, ‘chief of army engineers for Gen. MacArthur's Southwest’ Pacific area. And he already is a legend out here How he got that way is a bona fide Horatio Alger yarn. n 14 u SVERDRUP was born in Oslo, the son of a professor at the Royal university. A cousin, George Sverdrup, president of Augsburg,

Maj. Cameron Fairchild of Houston, Tex,” of the training ‘command's central school for flexible gunnery { The frangible is made from a combination of lead

«and plastic. material hard enough to withstand being

fired' through a machine gun, but soft enough to splatter harmlessly into a fine powder of the approximate consistency of sugar, on contact with duraluminim specially treated. It is much like a drop of water spreading when it. hits glass. This gives a gunner a chance to deliver a real punch at a live opponent, something never before possible in any training program.

By Eleanor Roosevelt

| | | | | 1

_ women's organizations. It has a legislative program |

and over the period of years during which it has existed much has been accomplished. This year they are trying to get the school attendance age raised to 16. They are working on hospital care for mentally defective and spastic children. They are interested in getting their state laws to co-operate more fully with the federal social security laws in the matter of old-age pensions, and, finally, they are studying their county and city jails. At 3:30 I spoké to a legislative assembly -in the lovely old state capitol, Then we had an hour's rest at Mr. Daniels’ house before going to speak to the Girl Scouts at 5:30. Afterward we had dinner with the members of the Institute*on Religion, who ‘in-| vited me to come and make their closing address in’ the auditorium in the evening. We left there at a few ‘minutes before 10 and had | time to oack and change our clothes before takihg the night train which brought us to Black Mountain, | N. C. at 8:30 this morning. Here we are in the!

the German and Japanese diplomats before “they

Up Front With Mauldin

| world war 1 was on

college, a -Lutheran school in Minnesota, came to Norway on an exchange professorship. When he returned to the States, young Leif Sverdrup went along—for a vacation. “The vacation isn't over yet,” says the general. For he, liked Minnesota, and he stayed on for a year of study at Augsburg. Then he entered the University of Minnesota. ”n n n HE WORKED his way through

—milking cows, cutting wheat

and so on. Summers, he would go by de luxe boxcar to North Dakotasand work the fields of college penses was earned with his own’ hands But he found time to make the swimming and skiing teams—he was captain of the ski team Soon

Every nickel his ex=

after his graduation. with an engineering degree, he enlisted in the army as a huck private— He got into camp, and lieutenant

training a second

an officers’ emerged as

| of field artillery in time to go to

France and take part the battle of the Argonne. " ” » THE GENERAL said his lieutenancy was ‘the highest rank I've ever held.” Tt's the lleutenants, the platoon leaders, who carry the load, in Sverdrup's opinion. His service in France was with the 2d division, to which he had been sent as a replacement. After the armistice he was with the army of occupation. for a while. While he was-in the army he’

became an American citizen.

After the war, he ¥Was in the reserves “for 10 years, but after that, he. was so busy building

| bridges he didn't have time. to

take the summer refresher courses

| at camp so he let the reserve | commission slide. :

» » y - ON RETURNING {rom Europe

finally settled down in Missouri,

| he worked “here pnd-there” and |

where in 1924 .he became chief.

_ general said. ‘across the Missouri, three- across

“the folks

all over the place and found only a few mosquitoes, some flying ants and harmless sand crabs. A further precaution was a salt solution, to kill insects, out of trucks and=sprayed planes.

from

» n ” OFFICERS SAY the courage of wounded marines is magnificent “All they want is a drink of water and a cigaret. «Then they ask. how their buddy is. They don’t complain,” one officer said As a stimulant when they come in they . have their choice of brandy, soup, fruit juice and coffee. Most of them refuse. the branay and ask for coffee. The hospital's main problem is keeping the patients in the hospital . Twenty . walked out one .day when the doctors weren't looking and went back to the front.

Times The Chicago Daily News, Inc.

General of the Pacific

engineer: for the state highway department. - Four years later he resigned and opened the engineering firm of Sverdrup & Parcel at St. Louis. The firm did all right, to say the least. It has had as many as 400 engineers on its pay roll. “We bridged most of the major rivers all over the country,” the “Twelve of them

the Mississippi, and so on.” n » ” THEN Sverdrup & Parcel got into airdromes. And not long before Pearl Harbor they got a contract - ta -installscoomessdar AR army ferry route from Honolulu to Townsville, Australia. It was a hurry-up job, crowded with headaches. Equipment failed

to tum up, and had to be grabbed wherever it could in Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere. Sometimes, in the absence of earth-moving equipment, hordes of natives toted the soil in baskets. ” » » BUT ALL dromes strips and operational buildings, were finished eight days ahead of schedule,

six with

The first planes — B-17s — traversed ~them early in January, 1942, a few weeks after Pearl Harbor Sverdrup was: still a then, and he had no inkling what he would soon through,

civilian of be going

NEXT — Exploring, Under the Jap's Nose.

>» HANNAH ¢

Bank -

shot

| |

PAGE 9

—LaborThe Big Issue: How Much Is Day's Work?

(Continued From Page One)

“time studies” to determine the proper amount of time to allow workers for production of varie ous parts , Sometimes it is done by esti mate, sometimes scientifically, The result generally is to establish a quota of many pieces an hour ora day

The

Workers make their quota anywhere from 15 minutes to a couple hours before eight-hour or nine-hour work day In many’ cases they their machines, The may put up with it’ or tough If they can get tough they may discipline the® idling maybe it is only a verbal reprie mand. Or it may be suspension for a few days.

the Mr. Lucey is ended idle about companies

may

yok EEL

WOIKEI'S ~=

s " on THAT'S what causes disciplie nary strikes. There have been a great many of them—more than ever get into the papers or public records, according to testimony given Senators Mead, Homer Fers guson (R. Mich.) and . Hugh B,

~Mitehell «(D. Wash.) by army offi

cers on duty in plants here.

The devotion to quotas was ine dicated in testimony to the committee by a General Motors forge plant official.

The forge shop quota on wash joints—used in military trucks— was eight pieces an hour per man, A new time study was made which showed 8.6 pieces would be proper. But due to a typographical error, the figure was made 6.6 pieces, Of 24 employees concerned, 23 dropped their production to 6.8 pieces. » ” » = IT WAS two months before the error was discovered. . When 1 was found out, production moved up to 8.75 pieces per hour. One official .of the United Automobile Workers union—conceding that time-study quotas made for idleness—said he had urged offi. cials of one plant to forget quotas altogether.

He urged: Give the men the job and ask them to turn out a good day's work. He thought that would get more war production.

But an official of the Timken= Detroit - Axle. Co. disagreed—if there were’ no Ghineé-study levels, he said, most men would produce less than they do now. 2 ” LJ

MANY union officials fear that time studies and higher produce tion quotas made today under pressure of war, will open the way to something like the speeds up and stretch-out of earlier days

Even when men are on pieces work, according to some testis, mony given the senators, they do not work after they reach a production of so many pieces turned out in a day.

Estimates of the production ef ficiency lost by . idléness - after quotas have been reached ranged from 10 per cent to 30 per cent, according to evidence submitted,

We, the Women WAC Record Stands Well With Colleges

By RUTH MILLETT COL. OVETA CULP HOBBY has had to go to bat to defend the morals of her \WACs In a I iew she pointed out that WAC recorlis i rount the malicious stories that have been circul a ted about women in uniform. She let it be known that no serious court - martial against a is on rec

recent inter

case WAC ord. in the European .theater ff operations— that dishonorable discharges are few ” s. y WE HAVE a realistic toward the men ‘in service, Soma of them behave themselves—and some don't. That's natural They are a cross-section of the youn men of the country.

attitude

So are WACs a cross-section nf the young women of the country.

There is not a college in the country that doesn't have some moral problems ameng women students. College deans are often called on to deeide what to do about a college girl who is In trouble. : » » » SO WHY should the civilian population get critical if among thousands of WACs some haven't as high moral standards as they should have? i “If. women in uniform are doing important- war Jobs: and their morals are as good—if not better —than any other cross-section of women their age, why should they have to be defended?

That they have to be, is a res flection on the fair-min edness of : their detractors: ~~. ™ ... ..g