Stokes: The conquered
By Thomas L. Stokes
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Troubleshooting is their trade –
Three landing craft built for 80 transport 672 men in emergency
Army engineers ‘on their own’ as sailors while delivering soldiers to front lines
By Lee G. Miller, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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‘Boys at the front’ dislike being used by Congressmen
By Daniel M. Kidney, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
I think I should take time out today to thank the people who responded so generously to my story on George’s shorts shortage. To date, George has received six or seven pairs of shorts, a bundle of pot holders, and four empty salt bags of really noble proportions. The latter at least should keep him well preserved.
This just shows you that when you make your wants known the warm-hearted American public will do everything it can to supply you. Look at Mr. Roosevelt. Every four years he says he needs votes to renew the lease on his house and the people give them to him.
And I remember reading a few months ago, when Sen. Saltonstall of Massachusetts happened to remark that his wartime garters wouldn’t stay up, he was practically smothered with gift garters.
Well, now that you’ve taken care of Sen. Saltonstall and George – I wear a size 9 nylon.
Reconversion tip expected in Byrnes report
Industrialists worry over lack of plans
By Roger W. Stuart, Scripps-Howard staff writer
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Monahan: National Velvet heads Easter parade
Rooney and Elizabeth Taylor top cast in enchanting tale of turf
By Kaspar Monahan
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Music for Millions has laughs and sobs
Margaret O’Brien, Durante, Iturbi share top honors in pleasant film
By Dick Fortune
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Pirates complete exhibition card
Ten contests listed – Rain halts workout
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Baseball briefs –
Rickey again feuds with Durocher – now it’s Leo’s radio job
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Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
IN THE WESTERN PACIFIC (delayed) – The pilot on our carrier who shot down the first Jap plane of our trip was Ens. Frank Troup of Decatur, Alabama. It was a reconnaissance plane, and he got it the day before we got to Tokyo waters.
It was his fifth, and made him an ace. Troup said the only reason he got it was that he happened to be closer than his wing-mates when they spotted it.
The boys who fly the patrols say that when they spot a single Jap plane, everybody in the patrol opens wide open, and it’s just like a horse race to see who gets within shooting distance first. This time it was Troup.
Next in line to Troup was Ens. Bob Hickle of Long Beach, California. That was the third time they’d been together when Troup got a plane. It had almost got to be a joke. Hickle had gradually worked into the same category as “always a bridesmaid, but never a bride.”
Hickle joked, “Now that Troup has got five, he’ll have to start helping me get some.”
And the very next morning Hickle came back glowing. He had got his first plane. Yes, Troup was with him, but Hickle got it all by himself, without any help.
I asked Hickle how it felt, and he said he was so anxious to get him that he almost ran into the pieces when the Jap turned over in the air and exploded.
‘Sure, he’s my father’
Some other of my friends among the pilots:
Lt. Pleas Greenlee of Shelbyville, Indiana. He’s the executive officer of the fighter squadron. He’s rather short, pleasant-faced, sucks at a pipe and always wears house-slippers around the ship. He has one Jap plane to his credit.
Before I knew his first name or where he was from, I asked him if he was any relation to Pleas Greenlee, a prominent Hoosier whom I’d met several times in Indiana.
“Yes,” said the fighter pilot, “he’s my father!”
Young Greenlee is an Annapolis graduate. His wife and baby girl are in Shelbyville. He has color photos of them all over his cabin. He is spending his spare time right now making a “pig-bank” out of a cocoanut for his little daughter.
Pittsburgher’s sport is skiing
Ens. Herbert Gidney Jr. of 623 Devonshire Street, Pittsburgh, is a torpedo-bomber pilot who was making his first combat strike when he flew over Tokyo. He said he was so engrossed with doing everything just right that he wasn’t scared at all.
Gidney is a big fellow. He went to Lehigh University, and you’d sweat he’d have to be a football player. But no, his great love is skiing. He used to take trips way up into New England just to ski. He even walks as though he were on skis!
Gidney has a system of letter-writing I’ve never seen before. He figures the only way to get letters is to write letters., so he writes 16 letters a week. Exactly 16.
He has a list of 16 people, made out on a big sheet of paper like a scoreboard, and checks each one off as he finished the letter.
Ens. Gidney, 23, is a son of Mr. and Mrs. H. A. Gidney of 623 Devonshire Street, who are vacationing at Pinehurst, North Carolina, at present. Mr. Gidney, a Gulf Oil executive, is a retired Army colonel.
Shakes Ernie’s confidence
Lt. Howard Skidmore, another torpedo bomber pilot, is from Villa Grove, Illinois.
When he told me that I said, “Why, that’s where my mother was born.” And then I got to thinking no, she was born at Camargo, a few miles south. And now I’m not sure.
At any rate Lt. Skidmore has lots of relatives around my hometown of Dana, Indiana, and has been over there lots of times to see them.
Lt. Skidmore had a unique experience on this ship. Last fall, he was sitting in his plane with the engine running, just ready to start his takeoff.
And at that moment a Jap bomb hit the deck less than a dozen feet in front of Skidmore’s plane. It killed several men and tore a big hole in the deck.
Yet Skidmore wasn’t scratched, and the close explosion didn’t even deafen him or give him a headache. Maybe that’s the result of coming from a good hometown.