all hands naval bulletin - nov 1943

8/4/2019 All Hands Naval Bulletin - Nov 1943

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t h i s photograph.I D

In bkkground , o ther menrepaira ifeboat:

he horse-f all hyrdo-electric facilities

the United States on that date.Aboutwo-thirds of the horse-

Navy vessels is fur-y steam-driven engines.

other third is diesel propulsion.This steep ncrease in productionpropulsion machinery has had to

by a sharp step-up inting of gears, one of the most

Ship completions measured by

hip completions measured inEach six months’comple-

of the prior twelvemonths.WORK N PLACE: ompletion of

of t hecrop,

uit ion of enormou s prior w ork.

Best measure of current work andf fu ture harvests is

value of new onstruction-in-onstruction-in-place”

new ships still on the

nlaunched-and still in theing basins-uncompleted. Theyhe ships which will appear in

A comDarison or construction-in-will reflect a isea comparison of

l completions. For example,of construction-in-vlace

on 1 July 942,$3,000,000,000 on 1 January 1943,

ship completions which is taking

Similarly, the relatively small in-in construction-in-place dur-six months of this year

a levelling out in the ship ’

trend. Total naval ship-s pproaching its peak-

It has not yet achieved that peak,however. Theact that construc-tion-in-place increased from $3,000,-000,000 on 1 January 1943, to$3,200,000,000 on 1 July 1943, showsthat, despite its tremendous size, thenaval shipbuilding programtillmoves upward.

In fact, everal segments of theprogram are moving ahead at nunabated pace. Combatant ship con-

most $300,000,000 in the first half ofstruction-in-place increased by al-

this year, its second-largest increase.Mine craft, patrol craft and yard anddistrictraft construction-in-placejumped from $347,000,000 on 1 Jan-uary 1943, to $481,000,000on 1 July1943, the largest ncrease on recordfor these categories.

Landingraftonstruction-in-place, which skyrocketedfrom lessthan $4,000,000on 1 January 1942,to $504,000,000 one year ater, em-porarilydropped back duringhefirst six months of 1943, thereby be-coming the principal reason for the

slackened rate of increase n otalnaval construction-in-place.BUILDINGTIME: Speed is a req-

uisite of w ar production. Ti m e e-

quired to build N avy fighting vessels

of each class has dropped to record

loss since Pearl Harbor.

Theircraftarrier Essex, a27,000-ton ship completed in De-cember, 1942, was built in 20 monthscompared with nearly 46 months re-quired for the carrier Enterprise, a19,800-ton vessel completed in May,1938.

The new 27,000-ton carrier Y o r k -town, whichwas ompleted in 30per cent less time than the original19,800-ton Horne.t, was built in 17%months or about half thepre-warbuilding time for a destroyer.

The 45,000-ton battleship N ew

Jersey was completed in 26 per centless time than the 35,000-ton Wash-

ington. Their buildingperiodswere33 months and 45 months, espec-tively.

Theheavycruiser W ichita, com-pleted in 1939, required 41 months tobuild while the larger Boston com-pleted in 1943, was built in 24. The1939 light cruiser Helena was builtin 36 months; the 1943 light cruiserBiloxi in less than 26. The de-stroyer Niblack, turned out n Au-gust, 1940, required 24 months, theGatling, completed in November,1942, took 7% . Between he Drum

in 1941 and the Aspro in 1943, sub-marine building time was cut 48per cent.

The Navy’s mass-production fight-ing ships are he destroyer escorts.To complete the first 10 of these ves-sels at the Bethlehem-Hingham andConsolidated SteelYardsequiredan average of02 days each. Theaverage for the most recent 10 fromthe same yards was 206 days, a re-

duction of almost one-third.MAN-HOURS: peed hasnot been

achieved b y an extravagant expen-

diture of labor. Yard s building Navy

ships have m ade substantial reduc-

tions in t he labor w hich they require

to completeavessel.

The New York Shipbuilding Cor-poration, an old established builderof cruisers,haseducedhe manhours needed to buildone of thesevessels by 25 per ent.The lightcruiser Cleveland, completed inJune, 1942, required 7,600,000 manhours.The light cruiser Santa Fe,

completed in November, 1942, re-quired only 5,700,000 man hours, asaving of 1,900,000 man hours.

TheBath ron Workssone ofthe most fficient builders of de-

3-q -”-/&,Pane 5



At navalorpedotationsheymanufacture a large part of the tor-pedoes used by fleet, aerial and sub-marine forces, and at the naval air-craft factory they help n develop-mental and experimental work onnew planes and on conversion ofothers. At navalraining stationshey perform. the continuing store-eeping and clerical functions whicheep a training station a going con-

cern.

There are civilian inspectors whodays going into plants

t sub-contract for the Navy, andtheir findings to inspection

cers of the Navy. There are civil-guards, and thousands of work-in the Navy’s administrative of-

In all these assignments that are

the direct supervision and con-of Navy personnel, making thempart and parcel of t he Navy’s

n organization. -,

When a Captain “Mike” Moranruns intoa fleet of Jap ships andsays, “Pick out the biggest one andfire,”-these arehe people whomake it’possible . . . who built theship and forged her guns, protectedher with armor and gave her enginesand electrical controls, who built theshells that went into the guns, so

that they would go fast and true.

These are the people you will readabout in this issue: how they salvageand epair he Navy’s ships (page1 0 ) ; how they help keep our air forcein the air (page 16) ; how-they sup-

ply the Navy (page 20); theirpartin he victories of “Battleship X ’(page 22) what kind of people theyare, and their take n he Navy(page 24) how some of their ideasare helping to shorten the war (page26); the Army-Navy ‘E’s they have

won (page 30); thedull jobs thathave to be fought at desks (page 32);what women are doing on the pro-duction front (page 33); how theybuilt the landing craft that made in-vasion possible (page 36) and whatthe Chief of Naval Personnel has to

say about them (page 40).



C I V I L I A N S WORK MI R AC LES O F SS alvage and R epai r Crews Put

Crippled Craft Back on Duty

Into Philadelphia one day camethe 314-foot uss Blakeley, an oldfour-stack destroyer, with more than60 feet of her bow blasted away by atorpedo.She had made her way2,000 miles north from theCarib-bean, navigating byold style mag-netic compass. A stubby false bowhad enabled her to push through thesea.

In he Philadelphia drydock, theBlakeley's crew saw that'theyhadtied up bow to bow with an identicalold destroyer, the uss Taylor. Asister ship of the Blakeley, the Ta y -

lor had been rescued from the junkbasin for just such a transfusion aswas promptly attempted.

Pneumaticrillslatterednd

welding torches flared as civilianworkers cut and sliced at the Blake-

ley's torn bow. Meanwhile, in thesame drydock, other workmen, cal-culating their work to the fractionof an inch, were cutting off the bowof the Taylor.

Finally 60 feet of the Taylor's bowhad been removed. Huge cranes de-posited the Taylor bow forward ofthe Blakeley. The two hulls movedtogether. They fitted to the fractionof an inch.

The Blakeley put back to sea. Shehad some other new fittings, too, in-cluding a regulation anchor to re-place the makeshift anchor she hadused on the rip home. The make-

shift anchor had consisted of a truck

axle and differential housing fast-ened atright angles to a length ofrailroad track.

The story of the Blakeley, an epicin itself, is only a minor miracle incomparison to many other salvageand repair jobs performed by navalcivilian personnel in World War 11.Pearl Harbor and theLafayette (ex-Normandie) were jobs of immensecomplexity. Therewere also theBoise, the S un Francisco, the Shaw.

Therewere jobs for the BritishNavy, too.

Results to date? Only three of theships sunk or damaged at earlHarbor are not afloat today. TheLafayette is afloat.Many a British

warship is back in action. The e-

"Official U. . Navy Photograph.



, almostubmerged,irst ives up T h e CALIFORNIA herself is nexteclaimed.Here the 1a

“Official U.S. Navy Photographs.

P xed weigh ts pr ior . t o refloating 32,600-ton batt le wag& i s being towed of f t o drydockturret gun is removed . after being raised by means of cofferdams.



af t e r Japbombs apparently knocked ber ou

an be seen against a backg round o f blazing oil

A permanent new bow was wait-3 ng f o r th e SHAW as the destroy-er was slowlywinched ntodrydock. he desi

3 two parts of th e SHAW are finallyJLILL z n a Lrauw U I J U ~ ~ ~ V I L J ,YJB

(

made one. Old a l s ebow at right. .&e was



across thew htghly por rsbea sur-faces, are given a final inspectionat th e Nava l Gun Factory.



100,000

ip Out All

d by Fleet

More than 35,000 uniform gar-ments for enlisted men are manufac-tured daily at he NavalClothingDepot in Brooklyn, N. Y . This is inaddition to the huge volume of cloth-ing manufactured on contract ndshipped to the depot for distribu-ion. Nearly 6,000 civilians are em-loyednow at the depot, compared

to the 1,'709 employed there at heutbreak of the war.Besides supplying clothing, the de-

East Coast ships andwhich tests

the Navy's dry provisions.

Seagoing armament is manufac-n fifteen navalrdnance

33 depots andeveral

rmorplatewarships, and several which

rangefind-optical equipment.

Although there re 1,800 prime25,000 subcontractors

on naval ordnance,Navya argepart of the

These

s of all calibers.Navy civilians also are manufac-variouskinds of torpedoes,

destroyers, ruisers, PT boats,irplanes; bombs and

; mines of various types;charges,netsand booms for

ing a naval anchorage; flaresand other pyrotechnics.

other words, theyare buildingis thrown at he

which do the throwing, in-nts or improving their ac-

y, and many of the protectiveces to (parry the enemy's blows.

One of the largest Navy plants is

NavyYard. There, manylarge-caliber guns are tooled

mbled. The factory also hasoptical department which

outdelicate devices, such asdirectors nd range-finders.

As intherranches of the

manufacture. Of thecivilians employed, about

are women.

"official U. . Navy Photographs.

BIG G U N barrel is i fled by a

workman at heNaval Gun Fac-tory ,W a s h i n g t o na vyard .



“Official U. S. N a v y Photograpl .

‘ W h e n t h e SOUTH DAKOTA and her 16-inchguns urned up unexpectedly off SavoIsland, hreeJapanese cruisers“nev er knew wh at hit them.”

The StoryBehind Battleship X’W o r k e rs W h o B u il t South Dakota Ahead ofSchedule Had a 35,000-Ton Secret to K e e p

“Battleship X,” famous for blast-ing threeJapanesecruisers to thebottom in one southwest Pacific en-gagement and downing 32 Jap planesin another, last month was identifiedby the Navy as the uss SOUTH DA -

KOTA,irst of a new class of 35?000-ton battleships.

The SOUTH DAKOTA would nut havebeen in the Pacific at all, in’t ime toshatter carefully laid Japanesetrap,had tnotbeen or civilian

shipbuilders at the New York Ship-building Corp. yardn Camden,N. J.

During both engagements (Battleof Guadalcanal and Battle of SantaCruz Islands, INFORMATIONULLETIN,February 1943 et seq.) the SOUTH

DAKOTA was commanded by Capt.Thomas L. Gatch, usN-now RearAdmiral and Judge Advocate Gen-eral. In praising the shiphe said:“Her battle record reflects the skill,energy and devotion of the men andwomen who built her.”

Through their efforts “BattleshipX” was launched 13 months ahead ofschedule. And despite the fact thatthousands of men and women hadworked on her, he secret of theship and her power were well kept.

Thus, when three Japanese cruis-em wheeled aroundhe point of

Savo Island, to springa trap heyhad set for U. S. forces, they walkedinto something. “They weren’t ex-pecting us,)) said Admiral Gatchearlier hisyear in describing thebattle. “They had set this trap forfoxes and we didn’t think it wouldhold bears.”

All three cruisers were s u n k be-fore their own guns were within therange of the battleship, and AdmiralGatch was able to report: “They

never knew ust what sank them.”Similarly, when Japanese fliers

spotted the battleship at Santa CmzIslands, they had visions of a secondREPULSEnd PRWCEF WALES,anddived in confidently, expecting toblast her apart. But of the first waveof 20 dive bombers, all 20 were shotdown. The SOUTH DAKOTA downed32 planes that day.

Because she was the first of a newclass of battleships bearing newarmament and possessing greatly in-creased firepower, it was decided at

the time not to identify “BattleshipX” as heuss SOUTH DAKOTA andthus give the enemy confirmed in-formation on the new class. Sisterships of the SOUTH DAKOTA are heuss MASSACHUSETTS, uss INDIANA and

Keeping a 35,000-ton ship “con-US5 ALABAMA.

fidential” i s no easy matter, whenthousands of ,people work either onherornearherdayafter day. Inthe case of the SOUTH DAKOTA therewere some complications that madeit doubly difficult, and which testedgreatly the loyalty of the workersinvolved.

For one thing, there is around anyshipyard a great feeling of pride inthe , ships they turn out. This wasperhaps more sb in the case of a

yard working on something as newand impressive as the SOUTH DAKOTA.

It’s anatural temptation, to voicepride in such a ship-and it is alsohard to hold one’s tongue nderprovocation. And the Camden ship-builders occasionally had plenty ofprovocation.

A reporter riding on the Camden-Philadelphia bus struck up conver-sation with another passenger, andasked what people thought of thevast shipyard there. “Hmmph,” wasthe answer. “Just ike n he last

war. It’s Fort Dodge,” which was apointed crack at what many peoplethought, mistakenly, to be true-that shipyard workers there were,as in the last war, given blanket de- 1ferments.

vastly different.Actually, theeal situation was



-0ficiaI U. S. Navy Photograph.

Expecting a pushover, lap torpedo planes skim in f o r “the kill” - n error that cost them 32 planes. T he

SOUTH D A K O T A go t 20 of t he first 20 .

Speaking with the heavy Scotchburr which is aatural soundaround that yard of ship craftsmen,

amarine shipfitter explained whatoften happened. “A lad gets toyearning to serve in he ship he’sbuilt. Some young lads barely fin-ish a ship than hey hustle downto the Recruiting Office toget theNavy to let ’em serve in it.”

The yard lost 25% more workersthis way thanhrough selectiveservice! But people didn’t knowthis. Another thing they didn‘t knowwas that he yardhad worked outa replacement schedule of its ownwith the f u l l cooperation of Selec-tive Service, and that it had workedso successfully that it became amodel.

“Draft boards are not shipbuild-ers,.” said one of the men. “Theywouldn’t know the difference be-tween a tack welder and a ullwelder. You can trainhe tackwelder ina couple of months, buta hull welder is a rare jewel of anartist. Draining off too many of the‘jewels’ may break the backbone ofa plant, and jam production.”

Today every man’s record isstudied by a joint committee. ’repre-

senting labor nd management atthe plant. They know howwell hehas worked, h i s production, his ab-sences, his attitude toward his work;they know how his job rates in im-portance and whether it-would be

difficult or easy to replace him. Andif he doesn’t measure up in the eyesof his fellow-workers, heaven help

him. For those men are the tough-est of all ju dg es do ur Scotsmen forthe most part , lovers of ship and be-lievers in a firm sort of “joostice”for all.

So well is the system working that,although the. committee was origi-nally composed of. two men fromthe workers, two from management,and one (Colonel Henry F. Rhodes)from Selective Service, the SelectiveService representative has beenable to withdraw from active partici-pation in it, convinced that he jobthe men are doing is far and awaybetter, ,fa ire r and. more productivethanany selective service mecha-nism, cquld ever make it.

Buk, people didn’t know that story,andl-up to now it hadn’t been told.The men couldn’t say, either, thatthey were s vo~~ i dgn something,bigger and more-powerful than any-one knei .’ Nobody could know hbwbig sheiwas, or what she was, or howpowerful. Nobody in the town knewanything about t. (And that’s onlypart of the story. These men wereworking on the landing craft pro-

gram, too, and couldn’t tellaboutthat,either.) So they just “took it”-and buttonedheir Scotch lipstightly.

Another good reason fo r keepingmumwas the fact that so many of

their o w n boys were in those ships,and the men would never have doneanything to endanger the life of asingle one.

the job that can now be told is thestory of what happened when Ad-*miral Gatch went to the yard tobring‘them he story of “BattleshipX” and her exploits, so they wouldkvow what fine shipheyad .

built. Instead of holding a giantralky, as might be expected, the menhad another idea. They sent heirleaders-the men of the joint labor-management committee- o hearAdmiral Gatch. “TO take al l tIy+@“ -

men off their work for a ml l~ wo i i l dmean time lost on the shi@y’ theysaid. Let Admiral Gatch tell hisstory to the men’s leaders, and theyin turn would pass it on to the menon their own time. And that’s what ’ ’ “

happened.James McKissock, hull welder

-and epresentative of the workerson the yard’s labor-managementcommittee, adds a final note: “Themorale in hisyard s.<,now higherthan an eagle’s dandruff,’’

It’s men like these who ar e turningout the ships. Admiral Gatch has

said of them: “The men and womeriof the New York Shipbuilding Cor-poration can be proud of th e accom-plishments of thebattleship SOUTH

DAKOTA . . . a fine fighting ship builtby free American workers.”

An example of their devotion to ,.

P a f e 23



Pape 24



Because this worker refused t o he .sat is f iP/ j j &th tho d d



Seven o f the nine ideas modestly submitted by this man JoeKautsky,63-year-old machinist. His “anonymous”under the name of “Mr. X ” won plant awards before his ideas won national recognition and a tri p to Washing-identi ty could be discovered.He urnedout to be . . . ton, where he receivedacitationat he W hi te House.

”Official U. . Navy Photographs.

use.Gaston’s idea saves 40,000 gal-lons of oil a year in this plant alone.

Savings in all of the “big four” ofwar production-time, money, mate-rials and manpower-were achievedby George A. Barnes of Shop 17,

Naval Gunactory, Washington,D. C., who suggested and designed anew drilling and tapping machine forordnance material. This has (a) in-creased production, (b) saved $12,-000 in the past year,(c)permitteditsubstitutionor expensive jigsand fixturesand (d) released per-sonnel fo r other important work.

A hobby turned intoa warweaponwhen John F. Fox, head marineengineer at New York Navy Yard,put it to a new use. Ih all our fight-ing ships it is necessary tohavethousands of label plates, most of

which must be engraved on specialplastic or bakelite surfaces. This isa costly procedure, involving the useof many precision engraving ma-chines.

Being interested in photography,Engineer Fox felt that a photo-graphic method might possibly beapplied to the manufacture of theseplates. Upon investigation it wasfound that processing special printsfrom a photographic negative witha plastic material would result nclear, distinct, hard-surface plates.As a consequence, work which for-merly required many engraving ma-chines isnow being performed byan unskilled woman worker. The costof the plates was reduced to one-fifth the original cost, and heavilyburdened engraving machines are

released for other mportant work.If you step ntoa lifeboat next

year t may besafer because of asuggestion passed along by PhilipBatchelor, of the Philadelphia NavyYard. He noted thathe copper

tanks used as buoyancy units inthose boats were vulnerable to gun-fire concussion, machine-gun bulletsand corrosion. A collapsed buoyancyunit wasn’t very buoyant, and any-way, copper was scarcer than hen’steeth.

Batchelor remembered having seena piece of cellular hard rubber madefrom reclaimed rubbernd con-taining small individual air-cells.Weatherresistant, t was relativelyunaffected by bullets, which passedthrough but did not affect its buoy-ancy. Nor did theseunits collapse

under gunfire concussion, as did thecopper ones. So now a highly criti-cal material is being replaced witha less critical one, and the seaworthi-ness of small boats is greatly in-creased.

Six workers at Mare Island NavyYard combined to create a war-win-ning idea known as “the inillion-dollar, doughnut.” This is re-packed bulkheadube packing, inhollow cylindrical form, used to sealindividual cable stuffing tubes inbulkheads to make them watertight..The deastartedwith one man inShop 5 1 ; four co-workers contrib-uted to the construction of it, and anaval officer helped develop it. The“doughnut” increases a worker’sproduction from 20 packings a dayto 400.

Parachutes owe a couple of im-provements to FloraWurster andAlva F. Starr, both of the Naval Air-craft Factory in.Philadelphia. MissWurster found a way to conservewebbing used for parachute harnessby getting two jobs done where onewas done before, througha simplemarking device of her own.

As for Starr, it is strongly sus-pected that he is a family man whoknows the home uses of a sewingmachine. At any ate,he noticedthat pilot chute suspension line eyeswere being laboriously hand-sewn.He developed amethod of using asewing machine for the same pur-pose. ’ That touch saves 2,400 manhours per year at the Naval AircraftFactory alone and is now being usedby outside manufacturers.

Putt ing couple of planks to-gether doesn’t sound too technical,but .things happen when it gets donetheight way. Clyde A. Rigsbee,leadingman laborer at Naval SupplyDepot, Oakland, Calif., saw thatloading a barge was not only difficultand dangerous because of the iseand fall of the tide, but time-con-suming in the method of handling.He devised a simple loading platformof non-rationed lumber, to projectover the edge of the dock. By thismethod, he reports, (‘WL now load abarge in50% of the time, and use less

than 50% of the men originally used.”Ideas don’t have to be big ones.

“One man,” according to DonaldNelson, war production chief,“fig-ured out how to cut five pieces out

(Continued on Page 70)



FOUR A R M Y - N A V Y “ E ’ P E N N A N T S , one f o r each of its four plants, have been awarded the Ray tbeon M anu-facturing Co., of Newton, Mass .

Winning ‘E’ Pennants-a Navy TraditionToday, Navy Plants W i n the Production Award;Yesterday, S h i p s W o n ‘E’For Best

Navy yards and privatelantsworking for the Navy have won theArmy-Navy “E” over and over asa by-product of their efforts inbuilding the world’s greatest Navy.

All plants engaged in war produc-tion and construction work are eli-

gible for th e Army-Navy productionaward. There is equalopportunityfor governmental as well as privateplants, those engaged partly on warwork as well as those engaged fullyon war work, subcontractors as wellasprime contractors.

Actually, only about 2% % of allplants engaged in war productionhave won the “E” pennant. Of the1,910 plants so honored, 1,188 werenominated by the Army and 722 bythe Navy. Proportionately, Navyyards ave won more thanheir

share.Jus t what does it take to win anArmy-Navy “E” pennant?

The standards are extremely high,with Navy plants judged justsstrictly as private firms. Many fac-tors are considered, but principallythe quantity and quality of produc-

tion in the ight af available facilities.Other factors considered in award-

ing the “E” are:(a) overcoming ofproduction obstacles, (b) avoidanceof stoppages, (c) maintenance offair labor standards, (d) training ofadditional labor forces, ( e ) effective

management, ( f ) minimum of acci-dents, high standard of health, sani-

P R O D U C T I O N B A D G E O F

MER IT : T h is is th e “E” flag,awarded by both Arm y and N av y,to plants w ith an oats tanding pro-duction record. Th e wo rd “Armyappears o n a red background, andrfNauyl)on th eblue.Letters andborder are white.

Gunnerytation and plant protection, (g) util-ization of subcontracting facilities,(h ) conservation of critical andstrategic materials, ( j) low absentee-ism.

Size of the plant has no bearingwhatever on the awards. A Brook-

lyn inventor, sole owner and opera-tor of a small machine shop in thebasement of his home, turns out pre-cision parts for Navy machine gunson a subcontract. The Navy awardedhim his original “E” n December,1941, and his production record hasentitled him to aenewal of theaward everysix months since thattime.

All navy yards now fly the “E”pennant, aswell as many other navalactivities which are engaged in pro-duction work. Certainyards have

apennant with stars, each star in-dicating tha t he yardhas main-tained the same high standard for anadditional six-month period.

Army and Navy have separateBoards to determine “E” Awards.The Navy board isomprised ofAdmiral C. C.loch, usw(Ret),

Pafe 30



Typists and filing clerks make up a large part of the Navy’s 150,000 civi lian ofice work ers.

The People Who Do the ‘Little’JobsWithout TypewritersandFilers; You Not OnlyCan’t ,

FightaWar-YouCan’tEven Keep .Track of One!

The girl a t the typewriter and thelittle old lady at he .filing cabinetmay seem a long way from the bat-tlefronts of this war, but the connec-tion is a strong one for many of the150,000 civilian employees of theNavy who do its clerical; office andother desk jobs.

Typical of all is one ‘who camefrom the ar west to work in heNavy Departmentt Washington,D. C. There were plenty of jobsnearer home foragirb.these days,but the motive chhe ou t in a letterfrom her father. “My two sons werelost at Guadalcanal,” he wrote.“She’s all I have to give, now.”

Another girl volunteered for workwith the proviso that it be with theMarines. Word had ust come thatherbrotherhad been hospitalized.Shewanted owork or the samebranch which he had served.

In Washington alone, some 20,000civilian workers help the Navy in

the vast and intricate job of runninga war on the “desk” front. They’retypists and mail clerks and stenog-raphers; accountants and bookkeep-ers nd purchasing officers; engi-neers and draftsmenand professionaltechnicians. About 71% of them arewomen-including an 18-year-old

from the Dakotas who had beenelected “wheat queen” by Army .har-vest hands, and a white-haired eld-erly lady of 74, known to herfellow-workers as “Admiral Whitecotton,”who came to work lastyearasajunior clerk!

There aremen with honorable dis-charges from the Army or Navy, andwomen whose menfolk are n heservice. Wherever possible, all otherthings being equal, preference i s

given to both thesegroups n em-ploying civilian personnel fo r theNavy.

In quiet,nspectacular fashionthey do the million and one littleunglamorous jobs on which awardepends. They keep the records ofall enlisted and officer personnel; re-ceive, verify andmaintainmusterrolls; account fo r the whereaboutsof every man in the Navy.

They receive all incoming mail,sort t,route to the proper person.

Much mail comes to the Navy De-partment for naval personnel whosestation or ship is not known to thesender; his is re-routed, properlyaddressed, forwarded to him.

They type the militqy orders, andthe specifications for ships andplanes; distribute navigation charts

toleet and ir force; transcribemedical histories of naval personnel.As engineering draftsmen, some ofthem design and redesign ships andguns and planes, basing their workon performance reports from thefleet.

They keep the accounts, watchthe ledgers, prepare the purchasingorders;drive the cars, deliver themessages, examine the claims. Now

that the President has signed the billamending the Servicemen’s Depend-ency Allowances Act, increasing al-lowances and extending them to allseven pay grades, an enlarged staff ofworkers will be busy going overclaims and reclassifying enlisted rec-ords to extend the benefits of the billas fairly, efficiently and promptly aspossible.

Civilian workers or hedepart-mental service of the Navy are nowbeing actively recruited in 36 states,excepting only the “labor-tight”

West Coast, which needs all its own.Naval personnel who have wives orrelatives able and willing to serve inclerical positions for the Navy canreferhem to Navy Department,Washington,D. C., or to any local es-tablishment of the edera l CivilService Commission.

Pave 32



Japs evaded joining battle after aseries of defeats in trying to rein-force their troops at Guadalcanal.

The Navy’s largest transportplane,the Martin Mars, in anendurancetest last month stayedn the airmorethan 32 hours, travelling 4,600 milesin anarea boundedbyBaltimore,Norfolk, Cap Cod and New York.

The fishing trawler AdelaideT.,operating off the eastern tip of Long

Island, was trolling slowly. The crewfinally noticed that she was trollingvery slowly indeed. So slowly, infact, that she was going backwards.Thecrew was still rying to guesswhat ort of amonster hadbeennetted when a smoke bomb emergedfrom the water. The next thing thatemergedwas aUnitedStatessub-marine.

Foraging inland on Sunday sou-venir hunting, two Guadalcanal Sea-beesmet adirty, dishevelled mancarrying Jap rifle. What’llyou

take for it?” they yelled. The fright-ened character dropped the rifle andfled into the bush. The Seabees real-ized they had collected asouvenirbut missed a Jap prisoner.

“Utmost expediency’’ was the ord-er last summer when a patrol squad-ron reported to an East Coast NavalAirStation ormajor changesandoverhaul. Some 375 workers (navalpersonnel and civilians) were put towork on the planes n a hangar abouta milefrom the dispensary. On hisown initiative, Glen H. George,

PhMBc, USNR, established a localdispensary in the hangar. Result:An estimated 700 to 1,000 man hoursof work saved by eliminating trans-portation to the main dispensary.

Seabee MaintenanceDetachmentsto operateandmaintain Navy ad-vancebases are being created.Or-ganized into a headquarters detach-ment, maintenancendperatingcompany, each new unit contains ap-proximately five officers and 270men.

Thename of the NavalAirshipraining Command has beenhanged to Naval AirshipTrainingnd Experimental Command and the

of the commander o Chiefof

to express morey the functions of . the com-

Officers and men .of a major shipf the British Navy last month made

arty acknowledgment of the un-and assistance ex-

hem on all occasions’’e their ship served actively un-

UnitedStates command. TheAdmiralty na message to

said: “The efficiency otf operating units of the Fleet,

t also of U. S. shipyardsandallmade deep

and heBritish vessel

returned rom her period of dutyimproved both in equipmentndbattle efficiency.’’ In its own behalf,theAdmiralty expressed itsgrati-tude and he hope that “it may bepossible for other units of the Brit-ish Fleet to operateunder imilarconditions.”

In operation in the SouthwestPacific are severalugeMarineCorps trucks hat tandout fromhundreds of others of the same typebecauseheybeariny eproduc-tions of the Rising Sun flag paintedon their hoods. The machine gunson these trucks assisted in bringingdown a Jap plane. Lashed to hetop deck of a convoy ship, the truckswerenoute to the SouthwestPacific. The convoy was attacked byfive Japanese planes. Manning themachineguns,Marine andSeabeetruckdrivers held their fire untilone of the planespeeled off anddropped a bomb about 400 yards tothetarboard.hen (along with

the guns of a destroyer) they openedup. The plane crashed in flames.

Rear Admiralhomas Leigh

Gatch, telling of the performance ofthe us s South Dakota (Battleship“X”): “She shot down 32 enemydive bombers while maneuvering atbetter han 27 knots.Sheputupsuch. a hail of steel that ourown air-craft commander ordered his men tostay well away from her. The SouthDakota is thegreatestship in theworld, including the much vauntedAdmiralTirpitz. She ran as quietlyand efficiently as a sewing machineand hecrew loved her. It usuallytakes a year for a new crew to learnto handle a ship in battle. Her crewdid it much faster. In her first ac-tion she proved tha t the bat tle sh ipwith air coordination-rules theseas.” (Astory on the building ofthe South Dakota appears onpage22.)

Famous hroughout he Navy forhis food and service, CezarDel Valle,CSt (PA) , USFR, lastmonth wasparted from theship onwhichhehad spent more than 21 years build-ing a legend of culinary incompara-bility. Wrote his commanding of-ficer, Capt. J. A. Roberts, USN, com-

”Portland (Me.) Tel egram Photograph.

N E W D E S T R O Y E R N A M E D A F T E R A D M I R A L S C O T T :T h ew i d o w ,t w o N a v y sons, and a brother of the late Rear Adm iral Norm an Scot t , USN,

wer e in the launching party when a sleek, new destroyer named in his honors lid down the ways a t Bath, Me. Adm iral Scott, posthumously awarded theMed al of H ono r, was killed n he Battle o f Guadalcanal while eading atask orceagainstheJapanese. In th eparty ( lef t to r ight ) are Capt .W i l l ia m G . L u d l o w , on the staff of Rear Adm iral M orton L. Dey o, USN,

Comm ander, Destroyers, Atlantic; Holman Scott, brother of Admiral Scot t ;Mr s . W eb b C. Hayes , Washington, D . C. , wi fe of Captain Hayes , Directorof Recruitingndnduction,BuPers; AdmiralDeyo;Comdr. CharlesBelknap, USN ( R e t . ) , St. Louis;Ens. Norman Scot t , Jr., USN Mrs. Deyo

(behind Ensign Sco t t ) ; Mrs.Belknap;Mrs. Marjorie Scott, Washing ton ,D . C., sponsor o f thedestroyer; her younger son, Michael Scvtt ,of theN a v y V-12 Unit at Yale;Captain Hayes;MissLila Deyo,daugh te rofAdmiral and Mrs.Deyo;Capt. Russell S. H i t c k o c k , USN, supervisor ofshipbui ldhg for Maine;and Archie M . Main,vice-preside nt of the BathIron W o r k s Corp .

Page 4 3



23 SEPTEMBER

Navy Dep artmen t CommuniqueN o . 469

South Pacific: (All ates reEast Longi-tude.) , 1. 0.n 20 September,during heearlymorning, s1x Japanese planes ’ bombed thevicinity of the air str ip on GuadalcanaL Lightdamage tomaterialand nstallationswas sus-tained.NoCasualtieswere uffered.

2. On 21September, in he morning,about12 or 16 enemy bombers were over Guadalcanal.Light amage an d some asualtieswere sus-

tained.Two of the enemy laneswere hotdown by one of ou r fighters.-

lexandria, Egypt, Royal Navy communique:In addition o ac tin g in close cooperationwiththeArmy and heRAF inDodecaneseopera-tions, Allied lightnaval orces have ecently

sinking the escort of one convoy and damagi ngdestroyed wo nemy onvoys n the Aegean,

that of the other.No Alliednaval asualtieswere incurred.

24 SEPTEMBERAllied Hea dquarters in North Africa: On the

night of 21-22 Septemberorce of motortorpedoboats enter ed he bay of Valona on

medium-sized merchantman laden withammu-theast side of th eStrait of Otranto.

nition,ogetherwithmaller essel,weresunk. Two other vesselswerehit.Shorebat-teriesopened fireon hemotor orpedo boatsduring heir etirement,causing some damaget o one. Theorceeturned to basewithoutany casualties in personnel.

The ships and men of the Allied navies con-tinued to land troops and their supplies on th e

.~ . ~ ~ .. ~~

beaches in the Salerno area, where the build-upwas proceeding according o program.

have been on a educed cale. Furt her southThenemy’s air ttack s gainst hipping

theEighthArmy is beingsuppliedacross heStrait of Messina.

NortheisternSector,Newreland:A recon-Allied Heaqu arters n he Southwest Pacific,

small enemycargo hip, eaving it afire andnaissance unitnort h of Kavieng ttacked

abandoned and sinking.NewGuinea VinckePoint) : Our ight naval craft on night patrolsankan enemymotor vessel. (Fin schh afen ):As ournavalunitswerewithdraw~ng, a force

fighters,ttacked.urighter cover inte r-of0 to 30 bombers,overed by 30 to 40

cepted with complete uccess, ot a shiporpassengereingamaged or injured. In a

ships’ antiaircraft batteriesarticipated,40

fightastin g 25 minutes ,uring which our

enemy planes were destroyed an d five probablydestroyed. We lost three planes, saving onepilot. Solomons (So uth Pacific Forces ), ChoiseulIsland:Our ighters in two weepsalong the

others and eft a cargo vessel burning n hecoast burned fou r enemy barges, damaged five

water.

between P rome and Magwe, a ZOO-foot steamerNew Delhi, India, RAF: Along the Irrawaddy,

and many othe r rive r craf t were damaged anda 100-foot oil barge was set on fire.

Algiers, AFrench communique on Corsica:

bargesaveeenunk,everalmmunitionTwoships oaded wit hwar suppliesand our

side awa iting embarkati on have been destroyed.dumps and numerous anks ying on the quay-

Rail raffic from Bastia o he south is inter-rupted, rench avalorces ar e playing animportantpart n Corsican perations.Theyincludecruisers,destroyers, orpedoboatsandsubmarines.

SeaNavy san k six self-propellingbarges withMoscow, aBroadcast:Airmen of the Black

Germanroops. In addition, five barges andthree patrol cuttersof the enemy were damaged.

Britishubmarines of the smallest type a bBerlin, NaziBroadcast: O n 22 September

tempted to ent er t he Norwegian island district.

they had been able to achieve a success. SeveralTheywere inter cept ed nd destroyedefore

members of the crew were aken prisoner.

submarinesmade a surpriseattack on enemyAftereveral weeks’ interruption,German

convoy traffic in the Nort h Atlantic. One fight-ing group of subma rines succeeded in intercept-inga convoy,hound fo r America,whichwasstronglyescorted.The attacks, herefore,weredirected against he extraor dinaril y high num-bers of de stroyers protectin g the convoy.

standing success. Duringseveraldays of stub-The Germanubmarineschieved an out-

born and mbitteredighting, 1 2 enemy de-stroyers were sunk and three others torpedoed.

probable.The total loss of thesehreeestroyers is

operatione.Neverthe!ess, ineteamersotal-Heavy fog impededontinua tion of th e

ing 46,500 gross register tons were sunk out ofthe convoy and anot her two were orpedoed

tivity-Last night,a smallenemydetachmentHelsinki,Finland,Broadcast:Naval Ac-

tried to reach a small island in Lake Aanis butwas driven off by our artillery.

Th e Big Raid on Rabaul was reported 14 October.

26 SEPTEMBERCairo, Egypt,A Middle Ea st Air Commu-

nique : Beaufightersttacked a destroyeraground a t Cape rasso,Rhodes, esterday,scoring cannon strikes and starting small fireson the vesselwhich appeared to beadlydamaged.

Allied Headquarters in the Southwest Pacific,Northeastern Sector,New Ireland Kavieng) :

sank a 2 000-ton enemy cargo vessel. SolomonsOur heavyeconnaissance nits ombed nd

(South Pacific Force s), Bougainvjlle (Bu ka) :

th ree medium ca rgo vessels west of Cape Hen-Oureconnaissancenits atlght bombed

pa nan dan enemy cruiser outheast of Cape

Island: One of our nigh t reconnaissance planesSt. George withnknownesults. Cboiseul .

strafed wo enemybarges off CapeAlexander,leaving hembeached and on fire.

Allied Headqu arters in the Southwest Pacific,Nort heas tern Sector olomons (Sout h Paclfic

stra fed nd destroyedmall enemyargoForces), Bougainvifie (Faisi) : Ourighters

stroyed wooil-ladenbarges.vessel. Choiseul:Our ighters stra fedand de-

New Delhi,ndia, ATenthUnitedStatesArmyirorce communique: On Friday.

Upper rrawaddy a t Katha.Adirecthit wasmediumombers attackedhipping on the

made on one arge river roat and several nearmisses were observed on fou r others.

New Delhi. India, R AF : River cra ft of t heIrrawaddy,north of Prome . . . wereheavilyattacked byRAFBeaufightersl nd amagewas inflicted n a large teamer, more than35 sampans and various other craft.

Moscow, Broadcast:TheAirForce of theBlackSea Fleet ank 11 fast andingbarges,three cargo barges and five pontoons.

Signz3cunt Victory Lies

Behind CommuniquesC o m m u n i q u e srepor t i ng

sinkings o f enemy barges maynot seem spectacular individu-ally, but as was the case re-cently in the Central Solomonsthey can add up to a significantvictory.

President Roosevelt pointedthis out to a press conferenceby calling special attention toalmost daily reports of de-struction of Japanese woodenandteel barges. While notlarge, the barges constitutedthe principal means of trans-portation for the enemy evacu-ating positions in the Solomonsarea.

sector heLuftwaffeyesterday shotdown ixBerlin, Nazi Broadcast: In th e Mediterranean

enemy airplanesand destructively hit amer-

chant ship of 3,000 gross t ons bybombs. Intheightreceding 25 Septemberermanspeedboats at tacked British patrol ships off theEnglish coast, one of which was sunk. In orderto relieve theirard-pressedatrolorces,Briti sh speedboats oined he fight. One of thelatter wasammed by aGerman speedboatwhen the weat her turned hazy. The enemy boatsank immediately. A Germanpeedboatwasseverely damaged in this action. It was scuttledby i ts own crew.

pedo and destroyer airplanes unsuccessfully at-To he southwest of D en Helder British or-

tacked a German convoy. Sixenemy airplaneswere shot down on this occasion.

27 SEPTEMBERCairo,Egypt. A Middle EastAir Commu-

nique:eaufighterseftmerchant vesselsmoking afteranattack inSyros Harbor nthe AegeanSea.

London, A joi nt British Admiralty and Royal

offensive patrol off the French coast last night,Netherlandsavyommunique:uringn

units of the RoyalNetherlandsNavy.up-ported yight oastalorces of the RoyalNavy, intercepted a large, fully ladenand heavilyescortedenemysupplyship. Ourforces imme-diately closed in on the enemy, orpedoing hesupply hip,which ank.A econd xplosionwasheardand it is believed that one of theenemyescortswasalso hit. AllAlliedvesselsreturned safely to harbor.

Allied Headquarters in the Southwest Pacific,

Area) : Our heavy units on reconnaissanceNortheastem Sector. New IrelandKavieng

made attacks on four small cargo vessels.Solomon Sea: Ourmedium units on reconnais-sance bombed and trafed 1,000-ton argovessel a nd two auncheswest of Buka. Solo-mons (SouthPacificForces), VellaLavella :Enemy ircraft bombed a small Allied essel

off the coast ausingdamage nd casualties.Choiseul : Oureconnaissance nits bombedandstrafed hree smallcoastalvessels,one ofwhichwas left inking.

escorted by Typhoons, two of which are missing,London, AirMinistry: Typhoon bombers,

attacked enemy shipping a t he mouth of theScheldt thismorning. Two smallvesselsweresunk and severalotherswere damaged.

London, Admiralty: Several groups of enemy

by patrolsconsisti ng of trawlers, ightcoastalE-boatswerentercepted off theas toast

forces, corvettes and destroyers. Several enemycraft wereseverely damagedand a t leastonewas s u n k. Duringhe ction whichnsued,

sunk.the rawlerFrancTireurwas torpedoed and

Meanwhile, twomotoraunches nderhecommand of Lt. J. 0. Thomas, RNVR, nd

ber of %bats etreati ng astwa rd t highLt. R. F. Seddon, RNV R, sighted a large num-

immediately and rammed the second boat in the

speed. Lieutenant Thomas put overhishelm

launches engaged i t with small guns. Lieutenantenemy line. As this boat drew clear both motor

motoraunch andurth er fire from bothSeldon then rammed he enemy craf t with his

motoraunches sett ablaze. Burningndabandoned by h er crew, the vessel blew UP.

Onemotoraunchustained some damagefrom the gunfire of the enem y and the bow ofthethermotoraunch was damaged in



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and theywere conscious thatourprodudion lines had notn themeanwhile been idle. Their war wasin fact one in which all the greatgains .would have to be made earlyand hen defended.

Thus from every point of viewthey were urged to a great and dar-ing stroke thatshould make good thelosses of Coral Sea. Probably theywere counting on our .expectingthem to make anothermajor efforttoward the southeast, toward PortMoresby and Tulagi Harbor. Possi-bly they believed. on the evidenceof Pearl Harbor, that an unexpectedattack ,would always catch us nap-ping.

No one can saywhetherheymight not have been rightatan-other time or against another officer,ut in the actual case these were er-

ro rs of enormous proportions. Ad-miral Halsey, the vigorous leader ofhearrier forces thatwereur

main arm (while the old battleships

which had been hit at Pearl Harborwere still mostly underrepair andhe new. fast battleships were stillnready) was ill; and his place was

emotionless tactician known as “theuman machine” in the fleet. a manithout any psychology at all in the

sense the Japanesewere rying touse it, who believed nothing but evi-

always acted on that. Hewas a member of that lit tle kitchencabinet of the fleet airarm whichgathered round Halsey and included

dmiral ,Fletcher, Captain Shermanf the Lexington, and Admiral Fitch,ho hadheadquartersaboardher:

the men who had been at sea whenPearl Har-

bor and who did not believe thatas the disaster t seemed, since it

not only left intact the striking forceof the carriers, but also promoted thethe carriers to the first line of na-tional defense.

It is possible that in such companyAdmiral Spruance was a volubleman. To the rest of the world he hadlittle to say, seemed always behindan aquiline face and rhadamanthinebrow to be thinking, thinking-notcleverly, with a bridgeplayer’s mind,like Admiral Yamamoto, who wasplanning the operation against him,but precisely, with the mind of anastronomer who mustmeasure theweight of a star two hundred lightyearsdistant by the variation of aline not quite as wide as a hair.

T h e First Mystery

The material for thought, both byAdmiral SpruanceandAdmiral C.

W. Nimitz, the little man with thebrushcut, was a series of reports tha tran in during the early par t of May,following the Battle of \Coral Sea.These reports came from Mac-Arthur’s land-based planes, from

our own scouting submarines, andfrom one of our carrier cruiser taskforces. They no more than men-tioned thedate and place wheresome enemy ship had been seen, andthe identification was often doubtful,but in them there was a line so con-sistently repeated, with small varia-tions, that it could not fail to drawthe attention of both Admiral Spru-ance and Admiral Nimitz-“Course315.”

This meant that most of the Jap-anese ships were steaming north-west, toward their home islands.Where they would go after that wasanybody’s deduction. Perhaps a lit-tle better than deduction; for a t thispoint we reach the first of the mys-teries of Midway. On 7 June, justafter hebattle, the papers of theMcCormick group (Chicago Tribune,Washington Times - Herald, NewYork News) carriedastory sayingthe Navy had known the exactstrength and disposition of the Jap-

anese forces almost since they hadleft their bases. According to thisstory there were three separateJap-anese squadrons to make the usualJapaneseattack ike the clutchingoutstretched fingers of a hand.

One was a support force, all fastships and powerfully gunned, withthe moderate complement of aircraftfrom the small carr ier Ryujyo o ac-company them. This squadron (ac-cording to the tory) consisted oftwo battle cruisers of the Kirishimaclass in addition to the carrier, hefour big light cruisers of the Mogami

type “armed with fifteen guns of 6.1cal.,” a smaller light cruiser, and tenbig destroyers.

One was an occupation force ex-pected to and troops; it comprisedtwo armored ransports,six troop-ships, eight to twelve supply vessels,twelve destroyers,and en subma-rines, in addition to four cruisers-Chakas, Myoko, Chitore, Choda

(again quoting the story)-with 6.1-inch guns.

There were some very striking in-

accuracies in this account-ineludingmisspellings like “Choda” for “Chi-oda” and an understatement of thesize of the Mogami-type cruisers’guns-and it did not list half enou hJapanese ships. But when the Mi%way communique of 1 4 July cameout (one of the h e s t pieces of proseever seen in an official document)it gave the strength and organizationof the Japanese forces substantiallyas they had been listed in this pressaccount, though without so manynames. The fact that some weeks1ater.the government haled the headsof t he McCormick press before

grand jury (unsuccessfully) on acharge of having published informa-tion from official sources without of-ficial permission, and so havingbroken the censorship laws, permitsthe deduction thathe Navy didknow, and well in advance, what itwas going to fight. Other evidencealso indicates that it knew when a dwhere the attack would come.

Pa rt of this is furnishedby thepresence of the carrier Yorktown.She had been in the Coral Sea ac-

tion with the Lexington, and on theevening of 8 May was steamingsouthwest and away from that dead-ly contact witha bombhole in herdeck and 44 men dead. Presumablyshe would have to refuel somewhere,replace planes lost or damaged inthe battle,and get repairs tha tatleast implied a visit to a port forspare parts. Yet she showed upatMidway less than month later,afte r a run of well over 5,000 miles.

MIDWAY IS.0

The Opening Pbase of Mi d w a y .



Carrier guns in action against l a p planes.- - O~f ic ia l Navy Photc,yraytib.

Damage to installations on Midway Island.

their own bombers blazing on theslopes of Ballyhou, a high percent-age of loss.

Everybody atDutchHarbor ex-pected them back with a lot of their

for this was ideal bombers’eather. On the heels of that first

us1y intended to dis-

o come over, ducking in and out o fall day long. Now the

knewwhat we had:notverynaval vessels, no

ion of air bombing and na-so effec-

he southern islands. The

Dutch Harbor tightened beltsugh ,an anxious day and night of

Island, nd nothinghap-

Surprise f o r the Invader

It is possible that the report of hishe scouts that -followed

the world to clean .,up:$htis opera-

horoughly, doing the job with

casualties which he could avoid.possible that out there in the fogthick you could stuffsofa cush-

taking in his planes and decidedwait for the clearing weather that

with dawn before undertaking

800 miles, soout there where he was, 70 ormiles from DutchHarbor, ed expect no aerial opposition ex-

from he PBY’s. Their pilots

fast Zero fighters

He waited for daylight; and t

was justabout to get his bombersaway and clean house on DutchHarbor when he was jumped by aformation of American P-40 fighters,escorting some of those wonderful

two-motored bombers which canoutrunanypursuitshipfhe Japa-nese have. Land-based planes-someof which carried torpedoes and allof which came from behind him,from the direction of Japan. It wasa touch-and-go raid by a few planesthat shed their cargoes of death andwere off again like a flash into themists, not waiting to see whetherthey got any hits.

We do not know-maybe shallnever know-how much materialdamage was done, buthe moraldamage was fatal o he apaneseenterprise.The enemy admiral hadfirst to spread his ships, put up de-fensive patrols, and send out scoutsto see what hornet’s nest hadspawned this brood. Toward after-noon one of the scouts succeeded infollowing the hird or fourth waveof attack home and located theirfield on Umnak Island, seventy mileswest of Dutch Harbor , where no airbase had any business being, accord-ing to Jap intelligence reports. Atthis news the enemy admiral pulledhimself together enough to get off a

squadron of bombers with heavyfighter escort for a damage raid onDutch Harborandanother for thesurprise base at Umnak. They hitboth places about 5 p.m. At DutchHarbor they set fire to an old wood-en ship thathad been run on thebeach asacarpenters’barracks; atUmnak they found the P-40’s wait-ing for them and lost two planes outof nine without any damage for ourside. Then these Japs steamed awayout of the area and the story.

For all they knew there were halfa dozen other bases hidden along

the island chain. They had no wayof telling that the one at Umnak hadonly just been achieved by the gigan-tic efforts of a rilliant engineercolonel, Benjamin Talley, workingagainst ice and 70-mile gales since

Pearl Harbor, aking his materialsfrom cases marked for an imaginaryBlair Fish Packing Company thathad. been invented to keep news ofthe project from leaking out through

espionage.Nor hadheaps nyway of

knowing either hatRepresentativeMagnuson would standup in heHouse two months later to say thatArmy bombers from another secretfield ‘nea r Dutch Harbor had failedto take off and smash up the wholeJa p force because they had no ordersfrom their own service and wouldnot accept suggestions from theNavy. Is t rue? Another mystery.

T h e W a r n i n g

T h e e hours after the Dutch Har-bor attack, while the Yorktoum wasrunninghroughright sunnyweather approaching Midway, Ens.Jewel1 Reid, flying aPBY patrolplanevery high 700 miles west bysouth of Midway Island, saw manyobjects on the water, deadahead andfar away, looking like ants on a dis-tant polished floor. He flashed awarning-the PBY boys alwaysdothis, forhey may not last longenough to get home with ullstory (on this operation one of themsent the message,“Dogging enemy,

please notify my next of kin”). ThenReidmoved closer, swinging outabeam of the formation, veryhighup, to get a count. Eleven big ves-sels; Reid thought therewere wobattleships among them, but he cameno nearer han was necessary tocheck their course and speed. Pre-sumably what he saw was actuallythe Japanese occupation force, withnothing bigger than a cruiser to cov-er it.

The effective attack range of tor-pedo and dive-bombing planes is 200miles. They would not do for this

job. Back at Midway curly-hairedLt. Col. Walter Sweeney, Jr., tookoff with nine Army Flying Fortress-es, which regard a 700-mile tr ip asan average run.

None of their crews had ever been,



”Official U. S. Navy Photograph.

Japanese bomber scores a direct hit on the uss YORKTOWN, aircrdft carrier, desp ite a tornado o f antiaircraft f ire .

As a matter of fact they had al-aunched them. It was not

or two from thisA. Chase in

hted over a hundredp bombers with fighter escort, fly-

and in tight formation forHe opened up his long-

shouted the news. TheColonel Kimes and

y back at our base allknow. Every plane

y took the air at once.The six machines of Torpedo 8

the first away. -The Flyingwent u p 1 6 of them,

our purposes can be called

So did fourB - 2 6 ’ s under Capt. James F.

experiment like that of thecan be called

attack group. Scout-Bomb-241 (the 4th attack group) went

16 SBD’s in one for-

11 inanother,under Maj.W. Norris. These were

away;as hey picked upon and headed in the direc-

en, the rear gunners

ck in time to see the Jap

antiaircraft open up.It fired abeautifulpattern, ust

feet short of the attackers-allwith a defective fuse,

on up, and by one of thef battle, exploded square

e nose of one of the onrushing

bombers. The machine fell apart andone wing, witha bright pennon offlame streaming from it, drifted zig-zag down and down like an autumn

leaf. This was the last thing Norris’men could see as they flew west tomake their attack.

TheBrewsters going out to facethe Japanese bombing force, withits escort of Zeros, hadmet t 20miles west of ,Midway. It was theenemy first team, the best they had,who yielded nothing to our Marinesin determination, and but little inskill. Four or five of them camedown; the rest, so vastly superior innumber, swung round to the northaway from therea where the

Brewsters and Zeros were hammer-ing at each otherand came in onMidway from that side, big waves offrom 40 to 60 planes each till oneobserver made the total of 180. TheJap bombers had 500-pounderapiece, which they dropped mostlyfrom 10,000 feet;henhey camedown to 1,200 to plant their lighterbombs and to make strafing runs incompany with the Zeros.

Too many had no opposition ex-cept from the grodnd antiaircraftfire, and heir skill was high--one

Jap planedrawing exclamations ofadmiration from the Marines them-selves as it did beautiful slow rollson th e tail of Lieut. D. D. Irwin,whose landingear ad jammeddown and whocoulddo no morethanry to lead the enemy intoground fire. “It was definitely hot,”said the Marine ground captain,

Gene Buckner; the men in the pitswere glad when silence fell after 20minutes and what was left of theenemy moved off to the southwest.

Colonel Kimes radioed his fightersto come in (only 12 of the 25 did;the others were all one, two of themmachine-gunned as they drifteddown inparachutes) nd crawledout. from his dugout command postto survey the damage. There weredead men and wounded men all overthe island. The administration build-ing was hit, hangarswere hit andburning; over on the westerly SandIsland an oil tank was on €ire. Amachine. shop was hit, the canteenhad been blown to matchwood, and

all the mess halls were destroyed,so thatuntil new equipment camefrom Pearl Harbor everyone had tolive on slumgullion cooked in bigkettles under the sky.

Down through the air as the colo-nel emerged therewere still drift-ing fragments of the Mitsubishi tha thad blown up so violently that themarines at first thought hesebitswere propaganda leaflets. All overthe north end of the island marineswere happily scrambling for singlecigarettes; by a freak of physics the

explosion in the canteen had strippednot only the cartonsbut also thewrappers from all the smokes in thebuilding. And down behind thatbuilding one of the classic remarksof the war was being uttered. Whenthe canteen was hit a marine in anemplacement beside it clutched hisstomach with both hands and rolled



over. After the :storm had passedtwo others pulled his hands away tosee what they could do for the poorfellow. Out rolled a an of beer,which had delivered a perfect solarplexus punch.

“I-just-can’take beer on anempty stomach,” he gasped andgrinned.

His aplomb was symptomatic, for

the attack as a’whole was a failure;it had damaged thegun emplace-ments little, the plane service estab-lishments hardly t all. The run-ways hadnot been touched-per-haps, it has been suggested, deliber-ately,because he Japs wanted touse them themselves. Forty-threemachines had been shot down, or SO

many that only genuine destructionof the defense plant would have beenan adequate return.

Counterattack +,’ ~’

Meanwhile our four attack groups

wereover the Japanese ships. Thesix planes of Torpedo 8 got therefirst. They found the main .enemystriking force in a tight formation,a swarm of Zeros outside like fliesround agarbage can, thencruisersand destroyers masking the bigships. “Get the carriers” had beenthe briefing down from AdmiralNimitz; the men of Torpedo 8 divedover the escort toward them into astorm of AA fire, small stuff withdirect laying, big shells from thecruisers, fired to throw up water-spouts that would tip the planes in-to the sea or smash. a prop; for atsuch speed spray can be as resistantas granite. Zeros courageously fol-lowed into the fire of their ownships. The communique said: “It isbelieved that this group scored onehit on an. enemy ship,” but added:“Only one of these six planes re-turned to , its base.”

Captain Collins with the fourB-28 ’s of the 3rd attack group camenext; his men had thought they wereon a scouting mission. Radios OD

battle-frequency picked up their ex-

clamations of surprise as they burstthrough the clouds and saw theJapanese fleet laid out in a pano-rama not 25 miles away, with theflight of the six torpedo planes goingon around it. A flight of Zeros de-tached itself to meet this new Amer-ican menace; Captain Collinswatched as they flew straight for hisformation, and at the ultimate mo-ment before they opened fire gavethe word and dived. The Zeros shotpast. Sergeant Gogoj in one of theplanes remembers a twinge of dis-appointment when he failed to get ashot at them from the forward gunposition; “then I heard Ashley startshooting hisgun from th e tail. Iswung around, and there about 530feet away was a Jap pursuit”-fromanother formation which had comeout of the cloud to ride them , in.

Pave 56

Tracer and pompom went past; Col-lins’ landing gear was wrecked; onLieut. James B. Muri’s planeherear gunner was killed. Both turre tswere disabled, and the machine setafire. He dodged between cruisersand destroyers, turned harp, ndheaded for thenearestand biggestcarrier, which had itself just exe-cuted a turn. Collins, Muri and theother two dropped their fish andpulled up, shooting over the bigship’s bow through a curtain of anti-aircraft, hen went into an almostvertical climb. One of them, too bad-lyhit o make it, fell off into thesea; but down below the huge pillarof water from a hit rose beside theJa p carrier.

It must have been the Akag i thatwas hit. Apparently theJaps hadjust begun to break up their tightformation, scattering heirvaluablecarriers under the cloud banks andconcentrating their defense in the

air. When Major Henderson’s divebombers of the 4th attack group,only a few minutes later, droppedthrough a high overcast androughai r into a parade of Japanese ships,the new carrier Soryu was the cen-ter of the picture, as impressive asight s he Lexington’s men hadwitnessed. at Coral Sea.

But this was not Coral Sea, it wasnothing like t; the Americans nowhad no torpedo planes tohelpoutthe bombers, no fighter cover and nosurprise. “I counted 63 ships in thefew minutes before the attack,” saysa rear gunner of Henderson’s forma-tion. “Then we began to get all kindsof flak, very accurate, and any num-ber of Zeros you want o name. Iwas scared to death; I never sawsuch a trip, and if I .ever do again Iprobably won’t live through it.”Scared to death;but he did livethrough it to be decorated for brav-ery and presence of mind in the 13-minute action athe edge of theclouds.

Full half of them did not livethrought. Maior Henderson was

one; &is plane &as heavily hit ustas he peeled off for the dive. It stag-gered and caught fire,’ but he heldon course straight for the Soryu andwith his plane and 1,000-poundersmashed into the island superstruc-tu re of the carrier.

Behind him the other planes camedown through the flak onto thewildly twisting carrier. Three timesthe big bombs went ight nto herdeck and columns of smoke leapedup. But as each bomber pulled outof its dive a section of Zeros pouncedon it, and the experience of CaptainBlain’s bomber was typical, as Priv-ate McFeely, the rear gunner, tellsit:

“We were all alone except foreight Zeros, but I managed to riddlethree of them so I got to feelingpretty good. But then another Zero

got on our tail and sent tracer bul-lets into our ship and then cut loosewith his 20-mm. cannon. I was hit inthe ight leg. The slipstream wasblowing blood over my goggles so I‘could hardly see. Our plane had ahole in the stabilizer big enough fora man to crawl hrough. My radiohad been shot off, my throat micro-phone, cockpit, andnstrumentswere shot up, with blood all around.I didn’t have much else to do so Itook over the wobble ump, whichkept sticking. Finally t1gas pres-sure stopped and the motor quit.We hit thewater with a crash butthe plane floated and we got out thelife-raft”-on which they floated 48hours till a PBY found them, afterthe battle.

Major Norrisnd his secondechelon of the 4th attack group camethrough the worsening weather atan angle that would have requiredthem to run through the AA andZero opposition of the whole fleet t oreach hecarriers; so they pickedouta “lovely battleship” and camedown on her through a terrific blazeof fire, Two hits, square on the fan-tail, where the screws and rudderhave but little armor, left the battle-ship burning enthusiastically.

It was now near 8:30 in the morn-ing. The main Japanese , strikingforce had split into two, one groupwith the giantcarriers (Kaga andAkagi , one of them with a torpedohole under her ribs), one with the

Hiryu and damaged Soryu; whilethe support force began to move into lend its guns and float planes tothe help of the main body. The 16Flying Fortresses from Midway hadtaken off in the morning under or-ders to go for the occupation fleetwith its transports-but now neworders had reached them: to switchto the main enemy triking force,against which nothing could be toomuch. The change in direction andthe elative slowness of the B-17’s(if anything that travels over 250

miles an hourcanbe called slow)brought this second group of planesto leave, last to strike, onto thatstriking force just after he Marinewhirlwind had blown itself out,about 8:34.

Beneath broken clouds they found“abig battle line, with destroyersoutside, cruisers, ndhenbattle-ships, and away back the carriers,whichwe pi’cked out orour tar-gets.” All the ships hey could seelooked in good shape, which prob-ably means they came on theKaga-Akagi group, whose woundswould be invisible. The flakwasthick, well directed,and well cali-brated; all the big bombers tookpunctures nd on at least two ofthem tail men or belly-gunners werekilled. But the Zeros were neithernumerous norvery earnest about

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61



trapped in the lower compartment(11-12 ’ October 1942, off Cape Es-perance) .

aRobert Halperin, CSp, USNR, Chi-

cago, Ill.: While in charge of ascout boat duringhe assault onMehdia, French Morocco; Halperintook his boat in complete darknessfrom the transport area seven milesoff the.coast into a position to locate

and mark landing beaches. When allhad landed he assisted the shoreparty n locating roads inland, andpersonally captured two enemy offi-cers. ( 8 November 1942.)

DISTINGUISHEDSERVICE MEDAL

Col. Perry K. Smith, USMC, Coro-nado,Calif.:As commanding officerof a Marine aircraft group in theSouthwest Pacific, Colonel Smithinstituted flights to Guadalcanalwhen the airfield was under heavysiege, set up his own schools for thetraining of personnel, and evacuatedcasualties to base hospitals. Unde-terred by darkness and tropicalsqualls, his vitalair ransport con-tributed materially to the defense ofGuadalcanal.I I

I LEGION O F MERIT I1ice Admiral Charles S. Freeman,

USN, Brooklyn, N. Y.: As commanderof the Northwest Sea Frontier fromthe ime of our entry into the waruntil 1 December 1942, AdmiralFreeman “devised sound. and com-prehensive measures in combatingenemy encroachment n hat erri-tory.”

a

RearAdmiralRobert B. Carney,DSN, Coronado, Calif.: As com-mander of a warship, Admiral Car-ney’s brilliant leadership contributedto successful operations againstKolombangara Island and the sink-

Kula Gulf ( 5 - 6 March 1943) .ing of twoapanese warships in

*RearAdmiral Aaron S. Merrill,

USN,Natchez, Miss.: As a task forcecommander duringan engagementwith Japanese forces in the Solo-mons Area on the night of 5-6 March1943, AdmiralMerrilldirected theinterceptingnd sinking of twoene’rny warships and the subsequentbombardment of installations onKolombangara Island. His task forcewithstood heavy opposition and came

through unscathed.7 2

Capt. Edmund W. Burrough, USN,

Washihgton, D. C.: While command-ing a warship during bombardmentsof Kolombangara Island and the oc-cupation of Russell Island, Captain

Burrough directed his ship withsuperb skill. Encountering agroupof Japanese warships in Kula Gulf,he assisted in sinking two of them.

QCapt. Gerson de Macedo Soares,

Brazilian Navy:While serving asChief of Staffo the CommanderBrazilian Naval Units Under theFourth Fleet, Capt. Soares contrib-uted greatly to the increased effi-

ciency of these units and to the suc-cessful conduct of thewar n heSouth Atlantic.

b

Capt. Leighton Wood, USN, River-side, Conn. (posthumously) : Whilecommanding a warship in actionagainst Japanese forces in the Solo-mons, January-March 1943, CaptainWood directed his ship with superbskill in a heavy attack by Japanesetorpedo planes. Later, his ship as-sisted in sinking two of agroup ofwarships encountered in Kula Gulf,and participated in hedevastatingbombardment of defenses on Kolom-bangara Island and the occupationof Russell Island.

*Comdr. WilliamD. Brown, USN,

Annapolis, Md.:As operations offi-cer and senior aide to a task forcecommander, Commander Brown’sintimate knowledge of the localitywas of invaluable service during thefierce engagement in Kula Gulf, 5 -6March 1943, where two Japaneseships were sunk, and in the devas-tating bombardment of enemy de-

fenses on Kolombangara Island.

“Official U. S. Navy Photograph.

KEPT PLANES FLYING: Capt.Henry R. Oster, USN, of Washing-ton, D. C., was presentedheLegion of Merit by Secretary of

the Navy FrankKnox recentlyfor his tireless work in keepingplanes of the Pacific Fleet over-hauled and in repair. CaptainOster, from June , 1940, to October,1942. was material officer for vari-

Comdr. Charles F. Flower (MC),USN, Berkeley, Calif.:As medicalofficer of the uss Astoria during thebattle of Savo Island, 9 August 1942,Commander Flower improvised adressing station while a severe fireraged about it. Later, when thewounded were transferred to a de-stroyer,he supervised the installa-tion of temporary operating stationsand continued administering treat-

ments. aComdr. David C. Gaede (MC)

USN, Loma Linda, Calif.: As medicalofficer for a Marine aircraft wing inthe South Pacific, from 22 September1942 to 15 April 1943. CommanderGaede organized facilities for evac-uation of casualties by air, main-tained constant training and indoc-trination for all flight surgeons andmedical personnel, and provided resthomes and recreational leave forcombat pilots.

i 7

To Comdr. Lawrence E. Tu11(CEC) USNR,Washington, D . C., andLt. Comdr. Robert E. Clausen (CEC)USNR, Los Angeles, Calif.:Ascom-manding and executive officers of aconstruction battalion, they uper-vised the erection of an mportantairdrome in the South Pacific Areaalthough hampered by extremelyadverse weatherand heavy enemybombings.

aComdr. Ralph E.Wilson, USN,

Salem, Oreg.: As naval liaison officerat Army headquarters on Guadal-canal during January and February1943, Commander Wilson displayedextraordinary ability and judgment,and was invaluable in coordinatingjoint service details of technical andadministrative nature.

* .Lt. Comdr. Andrew J. Hill, USN,

Poplar Bluff, Mo.: As commandingofficer of a warship in the Solomons,Lieutenant Commander Hill directedhis ship in continuous antisubma-

rine patrols, bombardments of en-emy shore positions, and participa-tion in hazardous landing missions.On one escort assignment when hisvessel was sttacked by eight dive-bombers, the gunfire fromhis shipdestroyed or damaged six of thehostile planes. *

Lt. Comdr. Frank L. Johnson,USN, Delaware City, Del.:Ascom-manding officer of a warship in theSolomons, Lieutenant CommanderJohnson helped disrupt numerous

air attacks and attacked and sank asubmarine. In wo night bombard-ment operations against Munda, hisship led the task group into position.He brought is vessel throughseries of fierce engagements without

ous bou ps inhe Pacific area. damage.



I . N E W BO O K S IN SHIPS’ 1LIBRARIESI

The following books have beenpurchased foristributionuringthe month of November to units inthe service. Although not all itleswill besupplied to all units, thepractice of the Bureau is to distrib-ute different titles to small unitsoperating in thesamearea so thatit is possible for units to exchangebooks. If units do not receive de-sired titles, request may be made tothe Bureau.THE DUKE by Rich ard Aldington. Biography of

the Duke of Wellington.?‘HE WEEPINGWOODby Vicki Baum. Sto ry of

lives of t he people whose destinies i t shaped.rubber, t he weeping wood, told throu gh he

THE REPUBLIC by Charles A. Beard. Though tful

CONDITIONRED byComdr. Frederick J. Bell.A

discussions on American nstitutions.

combat ruise of a destroyernheSouthPacific.

NOW I LAY MEDOWN TO SLEEP y Ludwig

high ife at the approach of the war.Bemelmans. Amusing novel, a picture of

COW BY TH E TAIL by Jesse ames Benton. Acowboy tells of his ifeqn he anchesandamon g he Comanche Indians.

TH E PROMISEy Pearl S. Buck.Mrs.Buck’snovd dramatizes the situation in Burma whenth e Japs weredrivingout heBritishandChinese soldiers.

TH E F.B.I. I N PEACE AN D WAR by Frederick L.Collins. Actual cases explain F.B.I. methods

THIS WINGEDWORLDdited by Thomas Collison.and echniques.

Collection of writing s about aircraft and thedreams andhe courage of themen whomade hem.

COMMANDT SEA by Capt.Harley F. Cope.A

guide fo r the naval officer.CRUSADE FO R PAN-EUROPE by R. N. CoudenhoveKalergi. Life story of a man who has been a twork a score of years on plans for a federa-tion of Europe,

MURDERN H AVAN A y George Harmo n Coxe.Cuba’s big town is the setting for another of

YOU’RE SITTING N MY EYELABHESby Whitneythisauthor’s well-constructed mysteries.

Darrow Jr. Collection of laugh-provokingdrawings.

SHE CAMETO THE VALLEYbyCleo Dawson. Anovel of lusty pioneer life in the valley of th e

SHADOW OF NIGHT y August Derleth. HassoRio Grande River.

wanted to avenge his brother’s death when hefollowed Gebhardt to Sac Prairie, Wis. i n th e

brought about a change of heart.1850’s, but life inhe rontier ommunity

STAGECOACHINGDOMy Harry Sinclair Drago.Excitement, action, horses in the West before

THE WILD DUCK MURDERSy Theodora Duthecoming of railroads.

Bois. Amateursleuth ( a doctor)workswith

THE AXIS ON THE AIR y HaroldEttlinger.the F.B.I. to solve murders.

Axis propaganda ; its background, istory

G-ARDEN ISLANDS O F TH E GREATEASTby Davidandractices.

Fairchild.Botani st describes plan tife efound on South Pacific Islands.

JOURNEYN TH E DARKby Martin Flavin. Thisnovel is the s t o r y of a small own boy fromthe wrong side of the racks who aimedhislife singly a t the acquisition of a fortune and

MALTAMAGNIFICENTy Maj. .Fran cis W.made it.

Gerard. Graphic account of th e siege of Maltaportrayin g he ife and stamina of the Mal-

BRIGHT IS TH E MORNING y Robert Gibbons.tese people.

This drama tic novel set in Alabama of recentYears treats o f brothersn love wit hhe

RINGFXI HORIZON y Edm und Gilligan. Accountsame woman.

of U-boat warfare n he North Atlantic bythe aut hor of “Gaunt Woman.”

THE WILD BUNCH by Ern est Haycox. AnotherW&Etcm

THE BATTLE Is TH E PAY-OFFy Capt.RalphIngersoll. Former editor of PM tells what hesaw and experienced inheAfrican am-

IT’S A FUNNY ORLD. Acollection of car toonsp a a n .

from Colliers.

. ” ” .

TH E BAYOUSF LOUISIANA y H ar tn et t T. Kane.. A charming portrait of a little known section

on the gulf coast inside Louisiana boundarieswith industries and customs all itsown.

LIFE Is TO O SHORT y C. Kay Scott. Biographyof a many-sided, widely travelled man, knownin scientific circles by hi s ealname, F. C.

MURDERWITH LOVEby Garl and Lord. An oldWellman.

major nviteshisheirs to vis it him. Murder

NONE BUT TH E LONELY HEART by Richardensues.

Llewellyn. Author of “HowGreenWas MyValley” write s of everyday li fe n Cockney

REDRASKALI: byClark McMeekin. A gir l a boyLondon.

a horse, and some villains in an e xc it hg taJof adve ntu re n Colonial America.

TH E FRUITS F FASCISMyHerbert L. Mat-thews. Fascism in taly discrihed, an d he

EAST COASTCORVETTEy Lt. Nicholas Mon-reasons for ts risd and decline.

sarrat.An action-filled tal e of onvoy duty.

THE PAGEANTF CANADIANHISTORYby AnneCAT’S CLAW by D.B.Oleen. Mystery.

Merriman Peck.THE GRANDDESIGN byDavidPilgrim. Adven-tures of James de la Cloche, seventeenth

HERE Is YOURWARby Ern ie Pyle. Correspon-century English secret agent.

dent’s xperienceson theTunisian ightingfront.

THE NVASIONF GERMANYy Curt Riess. Needandproposedplans of attack ordefeating

MY FAMILYIGHT OR WRONG y JohnPhilipGermany on her ow n soil.

Sousa 111. Antics of the Sousa family , which

THE MYSTERYF SWORDFISH REEFy Arth ur W.normally resembled a three-ring circus.

Upfield. Internat ional figures become tangledin a mystery while swordfishing in A u -stralia.

of suspense n his hriller.STALKTH E HUNTER y Mitchell Wilson. Plenty

New Books in the

Armed Services Edition

The following titles are includedin he second series of 30 paper-bound books published for the armedservices:B-31-Rose Wilder Lane, LET TH E HURRICANE

B-33-Robert Fros t, COME IN, AN D OTHERB-32-Fred Herman, DYNAMITECARGO.

B-34-Edith Wharton, ETHANROME.

B36“Peter Field, FIGHTOR POWDERALLEY!B-35-Mary Lasswell, SUDSN YOUREYE.

B-3i“Cornelia OtisSkinner ndEmily Kim-brough, OUREARTS WERE YOUNG

ROAR.

POEMS.

AN D GAY.

B-39-Rober Benchley, BENCHLEY ESIDEHIM-B-38-MacKinlay Kantor , GENTLEANNXE

B-40-William SloaneTo WALK TH E NIGHT.B-4l”EdmundGillig&t THE GAUNT WOMAN.

B-43-Arthur He nry Gooden PAINTEDUTTES.B-42”Alan LeMay, W I ~ E RANGE.

B-44-Rosemary Taylor, CH ~C KE NVERYSUN-

B-45-Pardee Lowe FATHER ND GLORIOUS

B-46-H. Allen Sm ith, LIFE IN A PUTTY NIFE

B-47”ArchieBinns, LIGHTSHIP.B-48-Hartzell Spence GET THEE BEHIND MEB-49-Mary O’Hara, MY FRIENDLICKA.B-50-Henry C. Cassidy, Moscow DATELINE.

R-52-WalterD.Edmon’ds, ROMEHAUL.B-51-Dorothy Macardle THE UNINVITED.

B-53-Struthers Burt, POWDERIVER.B-54”Louis Adamic, THE NATIVE’SRETUJZNB-55-Marjorie KinnanRawlings, THEY E ~ R -

B-56”Stefan Heym, HOSTAGES.B-57-Hubert Herring GOODNEIGHBORS.B-53”Merr ill Denison’ KLONDIKEMIKE.

B-BO-Peter Freuchen, ’ARCTIC DVENTURE.

B-69”arcusGwdrieh DELILAH.

SELF.

DAY.

DESCENDANT:

FACTORY.

LING.

INew Ideas

(Cont inued from Page 29)

of analuminum sheet that previ-ously yielded only four. Result: anincrease of 25% inhe materialavailable for his job. Someone elseredesigned a gadget and saved anounce of brass. An ounce saved on

each of a million gadgets is 31 tonsof brass.”

One of the strangest of all ideastories concerned the mysterious“Mr. X.” Ideas and suggestions forimproving production kept droppinginto the Suggestion Box atan In-dianapolis war plant, all of themsigned “Mr. X.” That they were goodideas is indicated by the fact thatseven of the nine urned in wonplant awards. But no one turned upto receive the award certificates.

When his identity was finally dis-

covered, it was found that “Mr. X”was 63-year-old Joe Kaufsky, ,ma-chinist. He has one son in the Navy,another in charge of the productiondepartment at a war plant. His ideasweresubmitted to War ProductionDrive headquarters in Washingtonand the board gave Kaufsky a Pro-duction Award Citation, highest na-tional honor bestowed for sugges-tions which boost the output of wea-pons and equipment for the fightingforces. Brought to Washington,Kaufsky was introduced to war pro-

duction chief Donald Nelson, to Gen-eral George C. Marshall, to UnderSecretary of the Navy James V. For-restal and many others. The highspot came at the White House, whenKaufsky received his Citation fromthe President himself.

Not all deas lead to the WhiteHouse-but most of them lead to ashorter war, and a saving in humanlives. In the first six months of thisyear, one big war plant receivedfrom its vorkers 35,750 suggestions.A country that can pour ’em out likethat isn’tgoing ocome in secondin any idea sweepstakes.

I II How Did It Start? II I

When badgesforhelec -t r ic ian’smateratingwere firstordered,a ‘(globe”( m e a n i n g a n

elec tr icightbulb) was speci-”ied as the iden-

tifying symbol. When the badgeswere delivered, the “globe” turnedout to be a reproduction of the globeof the world. However, the worldglobe looked so well it was neverchanged. (I f you have a new or di f-

ferentversion,send it along to t he

Editor.)



OUR FAMILIES AT HOME

ARE RATIONED SO YOU

CAN HAVEALL YOUWANT

"

all hands naval bulletin - nov 1943

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