Dancer spared – Yank to hang
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Criticism of UNRRA mounts as red tape hinders action
Destitution in liberated countries spreads but agency is handicapped
By Charles T. Lucey, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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In Washington –
Churchill’s optimism may affect Congress’ draft of manpower
‘Good heave’ could end war in Europe, he says, as U.S. is asked to tighten belt
By Lyle C. Wilson, United Press staff writer
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Senate nears showdown on work-or-fight measure
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Perkins: Portal wages case before Supreme Court
Ruling may affect new UMW demands
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer
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Chaplin will quiz writer but he must pay $2,500 bill
Comedian wants to know about possible Ruesch-Barry affair
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Durability, beauty in LeLong creations
Exquisite workmanship and classic design rank him as favorite
By Judy Barden, North American Newspaper Alliance
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
IN THE MARIANAS ISLANDS (delayed) – The funniest man in our hut of B-29 pilots is Capt. Bill Gifford, of Buford, South Carolina.
He’s a drawly-talking Southerner, lean, profane and witty. He has a long neck and blond pompadour hair and a wide mouth and he is the salt of the earth.
Before I arrived, Capt. Gifford held the record for being the skinniest man in the B-29 base. The other boys call him “The 97-pound Wonder.” But now they can laugh at me instead of him when we go to take an outdoor shower.
Bill Gifford is an old-timer in aviation much older than his fellow pilots here. He is 36, and has been flying about 17 years. As he says, he’s “too damned old to be in this bombing business.”
He says he gets so seared over Japan he can hardly think, and I imagine that’s true But I noticed he volunteered to go on a certain especially tough mission when it came up.
It turned out that Giff and I had lots of mutual friends in the early airmail days, such as Dick Merrill and Gene Brown and Johnny Kytle, so we become practically bosom pals. The Ghandi Twins, you could call us.
Bill has been around
Bill has been around in this world of aviation. He flew the early night airmail. He flew for Pan American in South America. He was in the Royal Canadian Air Force, and made seven trips across the Atlantic, ferrying bombers to England.
It’s worth a theater ticket to hear Giff tell about a mission after he gets back. He uses his hands and his feet and half the room and a great portion of his vocabulary. He gets tickled and then he gets mad.
It seems that everything always goes wrong when Giff is on a mission. He had an experience to prove it while I was here. I’d gone to visit in a neighboring hut for a few minutes and he couldn’t find me, or I would have been with him on it. Thank goodness I always seem to step out at the right moment.
Very annoying
Anyway, it was just a half hour before supper, when Giff got an emergency order to beat it to the airstrip right quick and take a ship up on a half hour’s test hop.
He made the flight all right, but when he got ready to land the wheels wouldn’t come down. That’s very annoying, you know.
Well, Giff radioed the field, and then began working on those wheels. Of course, these big B-29s are so complicatedly automatic that you do everything by little electrical switches and levers, and not by hand.
“Some guys must have spent all day crossing up wires on that airplane,” Giff said in his comical exaggeration when he got back.
Instead of the wheels coming down, the bomb bay doors opened. When I tried to shut them, the upper turret gun started shooting. I hit the light switch by mistake, and the tail skid came down. Just for the hell of it I tried to lower the flaps, and instead the bomb bay doors went shut.
Getting madder ‘n’ madder
By that time, I’d turned it over to the co-pilot and was back in the bomb bay trying to make some sense out of the switchbox and get things working again.
Finally, I just got so disgusted I hauled off and gave the switchbox a good smack with the screwdriver, and started to walk out. And just like that the wheels came down and everything was all right.
Giff looks more like a Texas cowboy than a bomber pilot. He’s a conscientious objector to all forms of exercise. All the pilots sleep all night and half the day, but Giff sleeps more than any of them.
He is probably the most unmilitary man in the outfit. He’s just an old-shoe Southerner, and generous as can be. On his wall are a map of the Pacific and a picture of his wife. He goes around most of the time in nothing but white underdrawers.
The first two fingers of Giff’s right hand are off, clear up to the hand. No, he didn’t lose them from flak or Jap fighters. He shot them off with a shotgun when he was hunting quail many years ago. He writes a beautiful hand by holding the pen between thumb and last two fingers. He holds a beer can the same way.
Giff calls his plane Honshu Hank. He wants to form a new fraternity called “Fujiyama, ‘44.” Its membership would be limited to those who had flown over Japan on bombing missions in 1944. He says if he never goes on another mission in his life, it would suit him fine.