Rambling Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
SAN FRANCISCO – The other night my phone rang and the voice said, “This is Lt. Petticrew at the Presidio.”
So I started trying to think who might be this Lt. Petticrew, and whether or not I was supposed to know him.
And then all of a sudden it came to me, and it is an odd coincidence. Just another of those small-world-after-all things. It was this way:
A year ago in England I wrote that the thing I missed most was sugar. So a number of readers back home sent me boxes of sugar. The very first to arrive was from a Mr. and Mrs. Dick Petticrew of East Lansing, Mich.
I didn’t know the Petticrews, and I had never expected to lay eyes on them, but you never can tell in a world like this. For the voice on the phone here in San Francisco was none other than that of the sugar-sending Petticrew of East Lansing.
The Petticrews came downtown to see me, and they turned out to be swell people. Dick got a reserve commission after graduating from Purdue University four years ago. He was called up last June, and after a few months at Camp Lewis in Washington was transferred down here.
Mrs. Petticrew, whose name is Sally, came along and they found a nice apartment and are crazy about San Francisco. Dick is in the ordnance department, and they are so busy getting shells and bombs out to the Coast that he works a 12-hour shift, seven days a week.
Vanity takes fall for defense
The ordnance officers have to do a lot of telephoning to the arsenals back East, and Dick, being affiliated with that old Midwestern habit of thinking you have to scream over the long-distance phone, shouted himself practically voiceless.
I asked him what impelled them to send me the sugar in England, and he said oh he didn’t know but he guessed it was just one of those rare times when you actually up and do one of the nice things you’re always thinking about doing.
San Francisco is full of war anecdotes. Here is one:
A certain rather foppish little man has been busting to get into the civil defense organization, mainly because he thought he would look so nice in a uniform.
So he volunteered for civil defense, and what do you suppose they put him to doing? Why, he is a spotter, and he has to sit in a manhole on a dark street, with just his head sticking out, from midnight till 4 a.m. every day.
Japs give money to wrong men
Immediately after the war started, men from the Treasury Department closed all the stores in San Francisco owned by alien Japanese.
But some smart boys got in ahead of the Treasury. I’ve heard of several Japanese who turned over their money (one as much as $900) to men who purported to be Treasury agents. They got no receipt – and didn’t demand one because they were scared – and now their money is gone forever. For the “agents” were phony.
Westbrook Pegler has been nice to me in his column several times, so I should be more grateful than to tell this story. But it rubs me the right way, so here it goes:
The day after war was declared, I went down to the Southern Pacific depot to see Mayor LaGuardia come in. There was quite a gathering of city bigwigs and newspapermen there. I was standing talking with Fire Chief Brennan, when a friend of mine overheard this remark:
“See that fellow over there in the trench coat,” one of the crowd confided to his friend, pointing at me, “That’s Westbrook Pegler.”
O.K., Peg, go ahead and sue.
San Franciscans apparently aren’t all as cosmopolitan as I’ve been led to believe.
Shortly before Christmas I bought presents for my father and Aunt Mary, and had them shipped to Indiana. Aunt Mary’s gift came from the City of Paris, and Dad’s from Roos Brothers.
And do you know that the clerks in both places, when they went to put down the shipping address, had to ask me how to spell “Indiana!” I’m telling you the truth.
Half a dozen San Franciscans have asked me where that building is I spoke of the other day that is practically all glass front and would be a nice morsel for a bomb.
And when I tell them they invariably say, “Well I’ll be darned, I’ve lived here all my life and I never even noticed it.”
My joke about the Jap submarine under the Golden Gate Bridge turned out to be not so funny after all didn’t it? They’ve been so close lately you could almost hit one with a rock.
But they won’t get far inside the Gate, for the big submarine net is up now. It’s no military secret, I guess, for you can see it out there – or rather you can see the buoys that hold it, and all the funny little sharp-nosed net-laying boats that put it down.
It makes you realize, more than anything else I’ve seen, that we’re actually at war and in danger right here at home.
Fair Enough
By Westbrook Pegler
NEW YORK – At midnight, New Year’s Eve, the people of the United States and particularly the people of New York lost, temporarily, at least, the public services of Thomas E. Dewey who retires from the office of county prosecutor and is succeeded by Frank S. Hogan, a Democrat, but a clean one which is to say that he is allied with neither the Tammany corruptioneers nor the New Deal socialists.
Dewey may run for governor next fall but nothing is certain these days and, meanwhile, one of the most effective public officials of his time will be out of action in the public behalf unless he be drafted into service by the President. The Hogan administration should be able to maintain the Dewey standard for Hogan was Dewey’s administrative assistant and he is retaining on his staff most of the other assistants who manned the uncommonly fine team whose exploits in the prosecution of criminals and particularly of political and union racketeers aroused the envy of many other suffering communities.
The situation is comparable to one in which a champion varsity loses the captain and a few stars by graduation but retains most of the players who made a great record, all enthusiastic experts who know their stuff and work well together.
Threatened often but never gulped
Dewey has been prosecuting and investigating since 1929 in both Federal and state services and his record was such that in Jersey City, for example, and Chicago, Kansas City, Boston, the Miamis and New Orleans, despondent citizens would sigh for a “Dewey” of their own to rip into the filthy gangs and cut them down. He was threatened often but never gulped and his achievement is the greater in view of the fact that he had to fight Tammany as a Republican which meant that the pious but intensely political and tricky New Deal was jealous of every victory that he won for the people and decency.
A horse for work, an energizing and encouraging captain, a great investigator, no pig for praise, Dewey always was generous with personal credit to the assistants to whom he liberally delegated important assignments and responsibility. His team developed a vast intimate acquaintance with crooks of all degrees and their methods and relationships. Degraded in the past by treachery to the people, low political venality and plain, dumb stupidity, the plant which he took over four years ago is now unquestionably the most efficient investigating and prosecuting agency in the entire country excepting not even the Federal Department of Justice and the FBI.
Dewey was so badly treated politically by Fiorello LaGuardia, his superior only in showmanship and his equal in none of the admirable qualities, that his aid to LaGuardia in the mayor’s recent campaign for re-election became a conspicuous return of good for evil. LaGuardia, a political mongrel, predominantly opportunist but with traits of socialism, had indicated that he would support Dewey for governor against Herbert Lehman in 1938. Instead, he supported Lehman as a New Deal machine candidate and Dewey was beaten but Dewey nevertheless not merely endorsed LaGuardia but fought for him against O’Dwyer.
Dewey’s office convicted Fritz Kuhn
It was a tough choice. LaGuardia, in his years in office, had inevitably emphasize his vulgar irascibility, his bullying intolerance and his inability to co-operate even with his own appointees but Dewey had only Tammany for an alternative so he gamely went down the line for a man who deserved only his contempt. LaGuardia’s dollar-honesty or indifference to personal graft was his strongest selling point but Dewey is equally incorruptible and undoubtedly would excel LaGuardia in any public office.
That Dewey’s ability should be wasted now merely because he still has legitimate political ambitions is a sad state of affairs in a country at war and infested with enemies at home. It was Dewey’s office that convicted Fritz Kuhn of the Nazi anti-American bund and he has the background information, the connections and the intelligence of a great detective. His knowledge does not end at the boundaries of Manhattan or New York county but follows the ramifications of conspiracies throughout the country and into other lands, but he is a Republican, not a Socialist or Communist, and his ambition to be President one day undoubtedly keeps alive, so it would be difficult to make full use of his ability.
New York owes Dewey much but the rest of the country can thank him too for proving that the rotten political and predatory unioneer may still be struck down by constitutional means, without violent revolution, by a man of honest courage, intelligence and ability.
Clapper: We need planes
By Raymond Clapper
WASHINGTON – Most of all, we need speed in making airplanes.
They come at the head of the list now. Unless we have planes quickly and in large numbers, we may be under attack on the West Coast, the Panama Canal and Alaska.
Many here hope that President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill are agreed that first place shall go to planes.
The second hope is that Mr. Roosevelt will be able to take time out to shake up OPM and SPAB. The hope is that Mr. Roosevelt will give the ball to Donald Nelson, now executive director of SPAB but sadly cramped by lack of full, clear-cut authority. Turn him loose to put every possible factory, big and little, at work making plane parts.
Take William Knudsen away from his desk here. He is all tangled up in red tape and doesn’t know how to handle it. Get him out in the field where he can do a real job as trouble shooter in production for which he has the real instinct.
Japs have Pacific stepping stones
I don’t know much about these things. But some people who do know about them feel strongly that this is the way we must go now. I have every confidence in their judgment and I am riding with them.
Japan has control of vital areas in the Pacific. Japan controls the Manila, Cavite and much of the Philippines. Japan has our stepping stones across the Pacific – Wake and Guam. Adm. Nimitz, taking command at Hawaii, says an attack to capture the Hawaiian Islands is possible. He warns that Japanese submarines may try to shell our coast cities. The Admiral in command at Panama says it is inconceivable that Japan will not try to attack the Panama Canal with carrier-borne airplanes – which is the way the devastating damage at Hawaii was accomplished. Published dispatches indicate anxiety about an attack on Alaska.
Perhaps Japan cannot do all of this overnight. But she is now showing ability to strike about the Pacific at will. Japan moves large fleets of transports and lands armored units with comparatively little interference. Already Japan has captured rich tin centers and rubber country in Malaya. With a little more effort, Japan will have access to many of the raw materials so desperately needed.
Suppose the far Pacific is reduced within the next few months. Japan has run this far on a fast timetable. Once secure in the Far East, her next effort would certainly be to try for Hawaii, to press her attack against the Canal and our West Coast shipping and aircraft centers, and perhaps attempt to obtain a base in Alaska. That would be the natural way for Japan to try to bring us to terms, and to persuade us to accept an armistice that would leave her in control in the Pacific, which is what she is after.
Can’t build Navy in few months
We may have to meet these possibilities in a matter of months. This war moves fast.
We can’t build a new navy in a few months. Under the old conceptions, it would almost take a new navy to deal with the situation. But we can turn out airplanes quickly. It is primarily by an air attack and by keeping control of the air that Japan has been able to damage both American and British naval forces. Our first necessity is to regain control of the air. We have a running start on plane production. Now the job is to concentrate on that start and drive it through until we gain superiority.
Mr. Roosevelt talks about turning half of our production into war work. That can and will be done. But into what kind of production? Materials are limited. Machinery is limited. Skilled labor is limited. We shall run into all kinds of bottlenecks and shortages.
If we try to increase our production horizontally, we shall be scattering our fire and be constantly delayed by competition for materials and labor. If we give first place to plans, we can insure that there will be no interruptions or delays in these most urgent weapons. Then we can follow in behind with as much of everything else as is needed, in the order of urgency.
That is the way a good many people here are thinking. It appeals to me as a sensible view.
Maj. Williams: The prophet
By Maj. Al Williams
“Japan must be bombed to defeat.”
The United States is in a better position than Japan to prosecute an offensive campaign by air. We own islands within air-striking distance of Japan’s vitals. An aerial campaign against Japan could be pushed to best advantage from Alaskan air bases.
Gen. William (Billy) Mitchell made lasting impressions upon those who were his worshippers. The greatness and clarity of this man’s vision is still far from appreciation by the layman, to say nothing of his high-ranking detractors. The breadth of his vision and the precision with which he placed his fingers on the keys of an age yet to come amaze even those who knew him best.
It’s hard to find any bit of thinking on arial warfare upon which Mitchell hasn’t expressed himself. I have often casually remarked that those of us who have fought for our independent air force are merely reflecting the vision of Michell who steered our minds in that direction.
Happening upon the quote at the head of this column by chance, I checked further and refreshed myself on Mitchell’s full strategy for whipping Japan. It was his idea that our airpower could move offensively against Japan’s vitals with airpower based on Alaskan bases and with the U.S. Navy squeezing Japan’s sea trade from the south. What does it matter if I humbly tag the Alaskan air offensive against Japan as “the high road to Japan” and the Navy’s campaign across the wide, fat belly of the Pacific as the “low road to Japan.” The original idea was Billy Mitchell’s.
Irritable observation
I listen to a lot of interesting things these days about aviation and airpower and modern warfare. The observation that irritates me most is that if the Hawaii incident had to happen, it’s good that it came at the outset, because now we are awakened.
The type of war which has developed in the Pacific and in the Far East and the campaign that must be waged against Japan means that we will have to triple and quadruple our output of bombers, fighters, and dive bombers. Perhaps even ten times our present output of planes.
And yet against this thinking we find people roaming the country, addressing earnest assemblages with stuff like this, “To win this war against Japan you must get the biggest navy in the world, the biggest air force, the biggest army, and then when you’ve got all that done, you must get the greatest ocean transport system to land an invasion force in Japan!”
American airmen believe, and the belief is confirmed by the very records and facts of the war, that the quickest and most efficient way to lick Japan is to bomb her vital industries and break her from the air.
A future picture
Airpower as we see it today is only a forerunner of something that is almost too big to visualize. It will mean great cruising fleets of bombers, searching all parts of the planet, able to strike across any ocean and pierce any continent. There are people abroad who believe that this picture of airpower is coming. My visit and inspections of European airpower establishments convinced me long ago that plans for such a dreadful reality were being made and experiments conducted to prove the details of such plans.
Why do you suppose European air strategists were bending every effort to devise and formulate world-wide weather prediction systems? Do you think they were just daydreaming? Well, I don’t. they told me openly that they expected in the near future (and this I was told in 1936-38) to be able to predict and forecast weather (flying weather) conditions forty-eight hours in advance anywhere in the world.
In that very effort and admission, you have one of the keys to what future airpower means. Let’s open the door to the future and look reality squarely in the face.
War puts silencer on radio
Sound effects are under strict regulation
By Si Steinhauser
Radio’s sound effects men, script writers and program directors have their share of “war problems” just like everybody else. Sound effects took a beating from the moment Uncle Sam took up his weapons against the Axis. Sirens, bells, alarms, all widely recognized warning sounds, noisy mob scenes and actions involving mob hysteria are definitely out. And further prohibitions are expected.
How will the radio technicians overcome these practically self-imposed handicaps? They grin and say “We’re at war and we’ll take it and like it. Of course we’ll have to resort to new tricks of dramatization to establish scenes and situations in listeners’ minds, or to indicate action. With a little tighter writing and directing we’ll get by. And it is probable that listeners may not even notice the difference.”
“It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good.” Tommy Dorsey and his band went to Hollywood to make a talkie titled “I’ll Take Manila,” not a war picture but a comedy. Came the Japs and the title had to be changed. Then the story had to be changed. Then the shooting schedule had to be changed. Then the band had to be paid for four additional weeks of movie making. And for being so good on the job Dorsey and his band will play for the movie version of “As Thousands Cheer.”
NBC is dickering for radio rights to Louis Bromfield’s novel “McLeod’s Folly.”
Don’t be surprised to find defense stamps the only means of gaining admission to vaudeville shows on tour with America’s big name radio and screen stars as the attraction.
Elsa Maxwell’s Party Line makes its debut on KQV tonight at 10 o’clock and continues as a Friday feature.
Bob Ruben, Pittsburgh boy, home from college on Christmas vacation, brought his second song with him. Titled “So Ends This Night,” it is now in the hands of the publishers and will be introduced by Baron Elliott. Bob wrote “Padoodle” which is now in national circulation.
John Kirby’s biggest little band on earth has been dropped from the Duffy’s Tavern broadcast because of economy.
The Golden Gate Quartet has signed a 1943 contract with a London night club.
Dix Davis, then but 9, made his radio debut in 1939 with Lionel Barrymore, so when Mr. Barrymore looked for a perfect “Tiny Tim” for his Christmas night broadcast of “Christmas Carol” he drafted Dix.
Arthur Tracy, the “Street Singer,” returns to KQV at 4 Monday with songs to combat soap operas. He’ll be heard Monday, Wednesday and Friday at the same time.
Tracy will retain his first theme song, “Marta,” an unpublished number written by Moises Simon, a Cuban, who also wrote “The Peanut Vendor.” The original was written in Spanish. Tracy had an English translation written and Simon gave it his approval.
Peggy Lee, blond vocalist with Benny Goodman’s band, designs her own dresses and has just set a style for “Blackouts.” Her latest creation is a simple black and white dress, the white following a V motif with a V-shaped pocket “for a flashlight.” Black and white shoes and gloves go with the ensemble.
Prediction for 1942: Five hundred youthful harmonica players will play on Major Bowes broadcast and all will say “I hope to palay like Larry Adler.”
Barry Wood has received the tenth renewal of his Hit Parade contract.
Benny Goodman once made a record as a saxophone soloist. Back in 1930 he recorded “Blue,” playing the sax.
Mrs. Oscar Levant is a former Gale Quadruplet, formerly of George George White Scandals. Mrs. Barry Wood is another of the quads.
Walter Gross, Columbia music director, sent his wife twelve dozen roses for Christmas. She sent him twelve dozen packs of cigarettes. Gross for gross.
Raymond Scott gave away crystal balls for Christmas. Inside each was a defense stamp.
New definition for a renewal of a radio contract: “The clause that refreshes.”
Maj. Bowes’ amateur hour will probably be a victim of war policies. His sponsor sells cars. Sponsors selling products requiring metal containers and caps will also retrench on radio time before long.
Millett: Wise wife will follow hubby’s hobbies
By Ruth Millett
There is really no such thing as a companionable married couple.
Look around you at the couples you’ve always set down as companionable – and you’ll see that there is a companionable woman, and a man who gives her a chance to be companionable.
Get to the bottom of a companionable couple’s hobbies, their interests, and their tastes and you’ll always find that they are the man’s hobbies, tastes and interests – which the woman has been clever enough to share.
Take the Joneses, for example, the most companionable couple you happen to know. How do they spend their spare time?
Well, right now they are doing a lot of hunting – which both seem to enjoy thoroughly. How long have they been crazy about getting out in the woods with a bird dog and a shot gun?
Well, Mr. Jones has liked to hunt since he was 15 years old. But Mrs. Jones never had held a gun in her hands until after she was married.
What sport did Mrs. Jones like before she was married? Tennis. Does she play much tennis now? No, Mr. Jones doesn’t care about the game.
Given a free evening and the choice between hearing a concert or seeing the Marx Brothers in a movie, the Joneses go to the movie. Aren’t they interested in music? Well, Mrs. Jones used to be quite a musician – but she’ll tell you without resentment that you’d have about as much chance of dragging Mr. Jones to a concert as to a PTA meeting.
How did the Jones’ happen to start taking color movies? Well, one of the men in Mr. Jones’ office got him interested.
And so it goes. When you say a man and woman are companionable, you really mean some man has married a woman who is so anxious to keep him she’ll turn herself into a companion in order to do so.
14 Nazi spies given fines, prison terms
NEW YORK (UP) – Fourteen convicted Nazi spies and 19 others who pleaded guilty were sentenced to prison and fined heavily today by Judge Mortimer W. Byers in Brooklyn Federal Court.
Leader of the ring of 33 persons, including three women, who were rounded up last June as unregistered foreign agents and senders of military information to Germany, was Frederick Joubert Duquesne, alleged master spy for more than 20 years. He received concurrent terms of two and 18 years’ imprisonment and a $2000 fine.
Edmund Carl Heine, 5, of Pleasant Ridge, Michigan, former head of the Ford Motor Co. interests in Germany, received the same prison sentence and was fined $5000.
Axel Wheeler-Hill, 41, whose brother, James, former secretary of the German-American Bund was convicted of perjury as a sequel to the conviction of State Bund Leader Fritz Kuhn, was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Among others sentenced were: Erich Strunck, 32, of Milwaukee (10 years), and Bertram Wolfgang, 37, of Topanga, California, who pleaded guilty to sending information to Germany (eight years).