Tanker survivors tell how mates perished in sea of flames
Seven dead, four missing off Florida
23rd ship is attacked by enemy submarine near Fort Pierce
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Tanker survivors tell how mates perished in sea of flames
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Former countess arrested by FBI
Erica von Haacke reported as enemy alien
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Sees health vital to war
Wilbur blasts waste of U.S. power through loose thinking
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Complete realism necessary for morale, educators told
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U.S. Civil Air Patrol awaits orders on defense activities
26,000 will be assigned to war work
May fly over spotters’ headquarters to test observers’ skill
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The Pittsburgh Press (February 25, 1942)
Rambling Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
MENLO PARK, California – Frank Terramorse is a foresighted man. He is ready for the World War to descend in person on his doorstep at any moment. Let it come, he is ready.
I told you in the preceding column how he had his roof fixed up with catwalks and tanks of water and sand and axes and everything. Well, today we’ll finish it.
In the Terramorse living room the piano has been moved from its usual place to the opposite wall, to bulwark that wall against concussion. And where the piano used to stand now reposes in weighty grandeur a mighty table, wide and high, with legs made of six-by-sixes.
This is for Mrs. Terramorse and their son Drew to sleep under when the raiding starts. They’ve had their instructions from Mr. Terramorse, and no violation will be tolerated. Furthermore, they must take to bed with them every night the pick and ax which stand by the fireplace, and the new 30-30 rifle. (Drew proudly brought the rifle out for me, and Mrs. Terramorse shuddered and said, “I sure hope I never have to shoot it.”)
In the Terramorse dining room stands a weird-looking vehicle on rubber wheels. Mr. Terramorse made it himself. It is really a low, movable platform. On it are the following things:
All the blackout plyboards for the whole house; a complete first-aid kit, big as a suitcase; two large fire extinguishers; two hard hats, the kind soldiers wear; two gas masks; two kerosene lanterns; a coil of rope, a bucket of sand, and various other tools of defense too numerous to mention, as the cliche goes. The only thing I missed was a machine gun.
He can laugh at shortages
All that is for defense against bombing, and has been done since the war started.
But as I said, Mr. Terramorse is a foresighted man, so listen to what he did before the war. Most of what follows was done nearly a year ago.
He traded in both cars on new ones last spring. He has extra sets of radiator and heater tubing, and extra fan belts. He has figured the entire Terramorse motoring situation down to the last kilometer. He intends to be still a traveling salesman, and by auto, when the war ends.
“Of course,” he says, “if they decide I’d be more good putting rivets into an airplane, well that’s all right, too.”
Unless the science of mathematics is a fake, Mr. Terramorse can’t lose on transportation. He’s got it all figured out by miles, gallons, thickness of tread and ratio of octane, for years ahead. The war can’t possibly last as long as Mr. Terramorse is prepared for.
He figures that by using his wife’s ration of gasoline, recapping his tires three times and turning corners more slowly, their present cars will last until he is 72 years old and will give 180,000 miles, or until he’s 92 and is getting 30,000 miles to the gallon – oh forget it, I’m all mixed up. But anyhow, Frank Terramorse isn’t going to be caught.
Stocks away food, clothing
Furthermore, three new bicycles stand in the garage, and the whole family cycles now Instead of driving around town on errands. Mrs. Terramorse’s car is seldom out of the garage. And his car does not move an inch from Friday evening until he hits the road again on Monday.
Also last spring Mr. Terramorse got everything new for the house – new refrigerator, new stove, new washer, extra parts for everything, even some new furniture. He saw all this coming.
They are beautifully stocked up on food. too. Mr. Terramorse says he is not a hoarder, for he is not hiding anything. If the Government should want it, it’s theirs. And further, he bought it all long before there was a scare about any shortages at all.
Mr. Terramorse’s hobby is cooking. He likes to make exotic Latin dishes, which require lots of pure olive oil. He has gallons of that stacked away. They have canned goods, too, and more soap than you ever saw outside a grocery.
Every clothes closet in the house is stacked full of stuff. On shelves and behind curtains you will find it – in the kitchen, the bedroom, the pantry, the shed, the garage.
Preparation has become a hobby with Mr. Terramorse. He even does it for other people. For example, he has a friend who rolls his own cigarettes, with a certain kind of brown straw paper. This paper is getting scarce. So Mr. Terramorse said he’d keep his eye open.
Mr. Terramorse did. He covered half his territory, and came home with 90,000 cigarette papers.
Mr. Terramorse is not apologetic about his preparedness idiosyncrasy. He is proud of it, and wishes other people would copy him. Nobody in his own neighborhood has.
“All they do is laugh at us,” he says. “But I don’t care. I’ve always been different anyhow. It doesn’t worry me any.”
As I drove away, the Terramorses stood and shouted for me to drop in and see them again the next time I passed. I said all right, I would, in case they hadn’t been bombed out, burned or starved to death.
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Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (February 26, 1942)
Rubber shortage blame disclaimed
Washington (AP) – (Feb. 25)
Secretary of Commerce Jesse Jones today irately disclaimed responsibility for the rubber shortage and declared that neither he nor anyone else “expected we would lose entire control of the Pacific.”
He told the House Interstate Commerce Committee that the country had about 650,000 tons of raw rubber in storage, and that the nation would be producing a maximum of 500,000 tons of synthetic rubber by the end of 1943 – four-fifths of it in plants to be built under contracts let this year.
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’Work or fight’ law is forecast in near future
Demand is made in Congress to end 40-hour week for war
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Los Angeles barrage laid to false call
Knox declares no planes found, no bombs dropped
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Jap ships sunk by Navy reaches 53
Rate dooms enemy, if kept up
Three more Axis subs destroyed in Atlantic; Army fliers add toll
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Rangoon ablaze as British apply torch
Natives, fleeing by thousands, blocking roads
Nipponese parachutists reported landing north of city to cut off retreat of Imperial garrison
By Karl Eskelund, United Press staff writer
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Japs encircle Java, cutting off Australia
Dutch say control could be gained with more planes
By Harold Guard, United Press staff writer
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Officer gets highest honor
Congressional Medal for hero in Philippines
Washington (UP) – (Feb. 25)
A War Department communiqué today announced that the Congressional Medal of Honor will be given to 1st Lt. Willibald C. Bianchi, 45th Infantry, Philippine Scouts for “conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity in action above and beyond the call of duty” in the Philippines.
Bianchi, whose home is New Ulm, Minnesota, personally silenced a Japanese machine gun nest with grenades, and afterward, although wounded, climbed atop an American tank and manned its anti-aircraft gun. He was wounded three times.
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BULLETINS!
Batavia, NEI (AP) –
Maj. Gen. Henry Gordon Bennett, commander of the Australian Imperial Forces in Malaya, has reached Batavia after escaping from Singapore in a large Chinese junk, which required four days to reach neighboring Sumatra.
Madrid, Spain (AP) –
The Foreign Ministry today denied reports that German submarines operating in the Caribbean were using bases in the Spanish Canary Islands.
Moscow, USSR (AP) –
The Moscow radio said today that Norwegian patriots had destroyed two new German military depots near Trondheim, setting fire to large quantities of munitions and fuel.
Chungking, China (AP) –
Chinese puppet troops in Suiyuan in North Shansi Province, northeast of the Yellow River, mutinied a week ago, killed their Japanese officers and advisors and then joined Chinese forces attacking Japanese positions, a communiqué said today.
Batavia, NEI (AP) –
Lieutenant-Governor Gen. Hubertus J. van Mook told the Dutch East Indies’ people last night in a broadcast that:
The foreign troops which are here will remain and will be maintained through a regular stream of reinforcements… the time for holding out and attacking has come.
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Patrols fight on Bataan line
Clashes in Philippines of minor character
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Eyewitness accounts of naval battle
U.S. destroyer kept attacking despite damage, casualties
Doughty American seamen take heavy toll of Japanese ships and forces in engagement off island of Bali
By William H. McDougall, United Press staff writer
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The CAP is awesome, I love there colours too.
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Meeting called by defense board
Washington (AP) – (Feb. 25)
The Inter-American Defense Board, expected to play a major role in providing convoys for hemisphere shipping, has been called to meet in Washington March 30.
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Boys like ringside seat at battle with invaders
West Coast youngsters learn quickly to accept war at home
Momentary fright gives way to keen interest in getting details of brilliant spectacle for school composition
By Hubbard Keavy, Wide World staff writer
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Truxton and Pollux survivors’ total now raised to 168
Story of heroic rescues from two U.S. ships told in Newfoundland
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RAAF blasts Japs headed for Australia
Start big fires and smash ground forces of foes
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