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i THE AMERICAN

EGIONHAGAZINE

DECEMBER

19 4 5

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////II//// ///IIIIHIHm

FORD MOTOR COMPANYHAS DEVELOPED

gpectit QwUtf Cri^...AVAILABLE AT NO EXTRA COSTTo make itpossible for many disabledveterans to again enjoy theconvenienceand pleasure of driving a car, Ford MotorCompanyengineers have perfected a spe-cial control lever, by which alldrivingoperations may be performed- —starting,stopping,accelerating, shifting.

It consists of a single lever mounted on

the steering shaft, directly opposite thehand-operatedgear-shift lever. Disabled

men who have driven cars equipped withthe new control devicereport it simple touse and easy to become accustomed to.

This driving control lever can be

installed in any 1940 or later model Fordor Mercury and in thenew postwarmodels. It will be supplied without charge;

any disabled serviceman may have thisequipment installed, andFord Motor Com-pany will pay the cost. The least we cando for thesem*n, said Henry Ford recently,

is to be sure that they get an even break

with those who come back without majordisabilities, and we donot want any profitincentive to enter into this picture.

HOW TO OPERATE THESPECIAL DRIVING CONTROLThe new driving controlis a single lever (shownat left of steering column) which operatesacceler-ator, clutch and brakes by power. Any downwardmotionengages the clutch and opens the throttle.As control lever isreleased from any position, itreturns to neutral. Upward motionapplies thebrakes. Special knob attached to steering wheelpermitseasy gripping by artificial hook or hand,making steering easier forarmless drivers. Hand-operated button replaces foot-operated floorbut-ton, enabling legless drivers to dim bright lights.

There's ain Your future

FORD M COM N

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ACCOMPLISHMENT

Old Grand -Dad is the proud ac-

complishment of an art as skilled

as that which carves a diamond.

For only a master distiller, aided

by the mellowing hand of time,

could bring out a flavor so remind-

ful of ripe Kentucky grain and soft

Kentucky sun. This fine oldbourbon

s something to serve with pride

and quaff with satisfaction. For

hat next get-together, count OldGrand-Dad among your mostfavoredguests.

Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey

Bottled in Bond —100 Proof —1 years oldNational DistillersProducts Corporation,

New York

THE AMERICAN LEGIONDECEMBER, 1945VOLUME 39, • No. 6 MAGAZINE

Please notify the Circulation Department, Publications Division,Post OfficeBox 7055, Indianapolis, Indiana, if you have changedyour address. Be sure tgive your 1946 membership card number andboth your new and your old address.

EDITORIAL AND ADVERTISING OFFICES • One Park Avenue, New York16, N. Y.EXECUTIVE AND ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICES • Indianapolis 6,Indiana

HomecomingBy Boyd B. Stutler

THE NOONDAY SUN shone brightlydown on Tokyo Bay where thepowerful

Third U. S. Fleet, with hundreds of other

American naval and cargo craft, rode

easily on the choppy waters. From thedecks of the battle-scarredflat top, the

U.S.S. Ticonderoga, I could see the forever

historic U.S.S. Missouri riding in quiet

dignity at her anchorage near the spot

where less than three weeks before the

delegates of the Japanese Imperial Gov-

ernment had signed the articles of uncon-

ditional surrender on her veranda deck.

{Continued on page 4)

A service man or woman wouldlike to read this copy of yourLegionMagazine. For overseas,seal the envelope and put on21 cents instamps, as first class

postage is required. If you putthe National Legionnaire intheenvelope carrying the magazineoverseas, make the postage 24centsinstead of 21. For thehome front the mailing chargefor the magazineand the Na-tional Legionnaire is five cents

—unsealed envelope. For themagazine alone, four cents.

In sending the magazine to aFleet Post Office, Second Classratesapply —four cents in anunsealed envelope —but markin the left handcorner of the

envelooe SecondClass Matter.

CONTENTSCOVER DESIGNBy John J. Floherty, Jr.

PARTNERS IN PEACEBy Brig. Gi:n. Carlos P. Romulo

Drawing by Robert Blattner

THE FOO FIGHTER MYSTERYBy Jo Chamberlin

Sketch by Raymond Creekmore

DALY DOUBLEBy Stan Swinton

Photos by Ben De BrocHeO TANNENBAUMBy MacKinlay Kantor

Illustrated by Trail Mawicke

THE GREAT DAYSBy Hamilton Greene

Illustrated by the author

THE CASE OF THE TOY GUNBy Mike Detzer

Illustrated by Marshall Frantz

EUROPE'S THEIR DISHBy John Grotii

Illustrated by the author

BUILDING CAN USE YOUBy Murray Davis

Photos by Ben De BrockeTHE UNDOING OF OLD HEPBy Harry Nye

Drawings by William Von Riegen

DON'T MAKE A PASS AT EDDIEBy Paul D. Green

SO WERE JOINING THE LEGIONBy Alvtn .Suddeth

Decoration by Henry J. O'Brien

THEY WON'T USE COCONUTSBy Pfc. Joe Wilman

THE NOBLEST GAME ALIVEBy Archibald Rutledge

Sketches by Carl Pfeufer

THAT FANTASTIC RADARBy Norman R. GoldmanSpots bx Fred Eng

Postmaster: Please send notices on form 3578 and copiesreturned

under labels form 3579 to 777 N. Meridian St., Indianapolis 6,Ind.

The American Lemon Magazine is the official publication of TheAmerican Legion and is ownedclusively by The American Legion,Copyright 1945. Published monthly at 455 West 22d St., Chicago,111.Acceptance for mailing at special r at e o f postage provided forin Section 1103, Act o f O ct . 3, 19authorized Jan. 5, 1925.Price, single copy, 15 cents; yearly subscription, $1.25. Enteredas second clmatter Sept. 26, 1931, at the Post Office at Chicago,111., under the Act of March 3, 1879. ClaudeRamsey, Raleigh, N. C,Chairman of the Legion Publications Commission ; Robert W. Coldish,Moines, Iowa, Vice-Chairman. Members of Commission: Jerry Owen,Salem, Ore.; Theodore CogswellWashington, D. C. ; Lawrence Hager,Owensboro. Ky. ; Frank C. Love, Syracuse, N. Y. ; Earl L.MeyAlliance. Neb. ; Le Roy D. Downs. South Norwalk, Conn. ; HarryR. Allen, Brockton. Mass. : PaulDague, Downingtown, Pa. ; JosephPartridge, Lake Charles, La. ; Tom W. McCaw, Dennison, O. ;Harlienoit, Twin Falls, Idaho ; James P. Hollers, San Antonio, Tex; T. H. McGovran, Charleston, W.

Director of Publications, James F. Barton. Indiananolis, Ind. :Editor, Alexander Gardiner : DirectorAdvertising, Thomas O. Woolf ;Managing Editor, Boyd B. Stutler ; Art Editor, Edward M.StevensonAssociate Editors, John J. Noll, Frank Lisiecki, and DavidStick.

The Editors cannot be responsible for unsolicited manuscriptsunless return postage is encloaed. Namof characters in our fictionand semi-fiction articles that deal with types are fictitious. Useof the naof any person living or dead is pure coincidence.

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10 of the last 11 car-production years

Today, there is more reason than ever before to

choose Chevrolet, as you will readily agree when you

see and drive the new 1946 Chevrolet and weigh itsmanyadvantages.

Look to Chevrolet for beauty, and you will discover it in

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find your confidence fully rewarded today just as it

has been in the past. Decide now to Choose the Leader—CHEVROLET

Motors Corporation, DETROIT 2, MICHIGAN

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About a Barbasol Face It's finer, smoother, cleaner— the kind offacethe ladies like to keep in touch with— thanks to thosesuperfine

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Behind me as I turned my face towardUncle Sam's land was morethan a yearwith the Army and Navy in the watersnd on the islands ofthe Western Pacific,nging all the way from Brisbane, Aus-

alia, where I joined General MacArthur'seadquarters before thenorthward move-ent, to the occupation of Japan and that

upreme hour on the deck of the MissouriTokyo Bay when, by a fewstrokes of

pen, Japan ceased to be a world powereven a member of the worldfamily of

tions. There, I saw an empire die.I had made the long trek onthe victory

arch through New Guinea, Biak, Morotai,orneo, the Philippinesand Okinawa, withde excursions to Peleliu in the Carolines

here the Marines won their victoryrough blood and sweat; toChina, wheresmall American force fought their war on

shoestring at the end of the longestpply route in the world.Later I was totness the complete surrender of thepanese forces inKorea —and I was ine northern part of the Hermit Kingdom

Songdo to meet the Russian Army ofcupation.

Behind me were eight beachhead land-s, long hours and days onthe lines with

infantry in combat, many times wheny were waging an unequalfight with

odds against them; patrols into thegles; street fighting in adozen cities,luding the weeks-long fight for Manila;

ve bombing with the Marine Air Groups;g bombing missions overthe coast ofia from French Indo-China to Shanghaid pioneer raids onFormosa with theth Air Force and 17th Fleet Air Wing;T boat patrolsin Philippine and Borneoters at a time when the Japs had com-emastery of the air; with rear area

ops when at their regular work andwhen necessity called them toget into

on with their rifles and light machines. All this was for thepurpose of get-

the story of the war in the Pacificthe readers of The AmericanLegion

gazine and its affiliated and associatedlications.

Now turned toward home I could wishnothing better than a berthon the

onderoga. Its battle-weary complementd the passengers had seensimilar service,h in his own sphere on land and sea in

any theatres. Land ho Uncle Sugar called the

kout in the early morning of October 5.ew and passengers rushedto the star-rd side to catch a glimpse of the Cali-ia shore,causing a sharp list. But its not until one o'clock that thegood

Ti eased up to the pier at Alameda,an hour later before thefirst of the

mecoming fighting men passed down thegplank to step off into themiddle of a

dozen assorted strikes.It was good to be home. Good to bek,though the San Francisco beachhead

a bit more rugged than some we hadd on the other side of theworld.

vhen^^SSSt^^^ com'

Sooner ;

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PARTNERS IN PEACEBY BRIG. GEN. CARLOS P. ROMULO

Resident Commissioner of the Philippines to the UnitedStates

IN THE PACIFIC and all over the world,the war of arms has ended.But the war ofideas goes on.

Let no one imagine that the batt le forcivilization is over justbecause our troopsnow direct operations from Berlin andTokyo.Greed, lust for power, blind ma-terialism, are still fighting forthe souls

of men today —a secret, guerilla warfarenow that the armieswhich marched openlyunder those banners are destroyed.

We have proved to the world that democ-racy can muster militarypower to over-come its enemies. But have we yet demon-strated tothe world that democracy canand does satisfy the deep needs ofhumansociety, that it is the one way to securityand happiness, foran individual, for anation, for the whole world?

Make no mistake —the eyes of the wholeworld are focused upon thedemocratic na-tions as never before. If we fortunate onescan keepour houses in order, if we canlive in peace in our own lands, if wecankeep the bonds of friendship between usstrong and sure as theywere in the daysof our greatest military peril, then the mil-

lions who have strayed after the false gods

On July 4, 1946 the Philip-pines will become a sover-eignnation. This is in accord-

ance with the Tydings-Mc-

Duffie Independence Act,passed by Congress in 1934.PresidentTruman has issueda statement that the provi-sions of this law willbe car-ried out to the letter

of fascism will be forever convinced of

their error.

They will forswear their allegiance tothe forces of evil. Then,and only then,will the peace and freedom and the goodlife we havefought for be secure.

In this war of ideas which is still goingon —and which must goon until the wholeworld is completely won to democracy—thePhilippines must be and will be as staunchan ally of America asit was during the

Drawing by ROBERT BLATTNER

battle of arms. For in the Far East, thePhilippines spearheadsthe ideals of Chris-

tian democracy for which America stands.For the people of theOrient know thatthe Philippines is the child of America, the

inheritor of her democratic tradition, the

representative of her culture and civiliza-tion.

When I say that the Philippines is thepattern of democracy inthe Far East,mean no disparagement of any of the greatpeoplesliving in that corner of the globe.

Let me make it clear beyond doubt —theother peoples of the FarEast have long

and glorious histories —their contributionto culture and sciencecannot be praised

too highly.

But I am sure that the other peoples othe Far East agree with mewhen I saythat ever since the advent of the Ameri-

cans, the Philippines has been in a pecu-

liarly fortunate position. The hunger fofreedom, the desire tobe master of one's

own fate, the yearning for peace and jus-tice, were deeplyrooted in the Filipino

heart— as indeed in the hearts of all peo-

ple —long before the Americans came.(Continued on page j6)

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Send for free booklet.

Hart Schaffner & Marx Clothes

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We held sort of

a Town Meeting on

Telephone Service

We mailed questionnaires to a num-ber of people who were waitingforhome telephones and asked themhow they felt about it.

Practically all understood thereasons for the shortage intele-

phone facilities and the big ma-jority placed theresponsibility

for lack of service on the un-avoidable circ*mstances ofwar.

More than 72% said the tele-phone company was doing allit couldfor them. More than69% agreed they should be wait-ing their turnsfor service.

About 19% thought they

should have had telephones atonce and 10% felt we could domorefor them than we had.18% thought others got tele-phones ahead ofturn.

Of course, we are grateful to themajority for their goodopinion,

but we also respect the views of

the minority who think otherwise.We've turned the cornerfrom

war to peace and we're on our wayto give service to all who wantit.

In the next twelve months, weexpect to install moretelephonesthan there were in all of France

and Belgium before the war.

BELL TELEPHONE SYSTEMListen to The Telephone Hour every Mondayevening over NBC

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THE AMERICAN LEGION MAGAZINE December, 1945

By Jo Chamberlin

DURING THE last months of the war thecrews of many B-29S overJapan saw whatthey described as balls of fire whichfollowed them,occasionally came up andalmost sat on their tails, changedcolorfrom orange to red to white and back again,and yet neverclosed in to attack orcrash, suicide-style.

One B-29 made evasive maneuvers in-side a cloud, but' when theB-29 emergedfrom it, the ball of fire was following inthe samerelative position. It seemed 500yards off. three feet in diameter,and hada phosphorescent orange glow. No wing orfuselage suggestingan aerial bomb or planewas seen. The ball of fire followed theB-29for several miles and then disappeared justas mysteriously asit had appeared in thedawn light over Fujiyama.

Some B-29 crews said they could readilylose the ball of fire byevasive maneuvers,even though the ball kept up with themat topspeed on a straight course; otherB-29 crews reported just theopposite.

Nobody could figure it out.Far to the south, a B-24 Liberatorwas

at 11.000 feet over Truk lagoon, when twored lights rose rapidlyfrom below, andfollowed the B-24. After an hour, onelight turnedback. The other kept onsometimes behind, sometimesalongside,sometimes ahead about 1.000 yards, untildaybreak when itclimbed to 15,000 feetand stayed in the sun, like a Japfighterseeking game, but never came down. During

the flight, the light changed from red toorange, then white, andback to orange,and appeared to be the size of a basketball.Xo wingor fuselage was observed. TheB-24 radioed island radar stations toseeif there were any enemy planes in the sky.

The answer was: None.A curious business, and one for which

many solutions have been advanced, beforethe war was over, andsince. None of themstand up. The important point is: No B-29washarmed by the balls of fire, althoughwhat the future held, no oneknew. TheJapanese were desperately trying to bolsterup theirdefense in every way possibleagainst air attack, but withoutsuccess. OurB-29S continued to rain destruction onJapanese militarytargets, and finally drop-ped the atomic bomb.

Naturally, U. S. Army authorities inJapan will endeavor to findthe secret —butit may be hidden as well as it appears tobe inEurope. The balls of fire continue tobe a mystery —just as theywere when firstobserved on the other side of the world —overeastern Germany.

This is the way they began.At ten o'clock of a Novemberevening,

in late 1944, Lt. Ed Schlueter took off in

The riddle of the balls of fire

encountered by our night-fly-

ing planes over Germany and,later, over Japan

Sketch by RAYMOND CREEKMORE

his night fighter from Dijon, France, onwhat he thought would bea routine mis-s ion for the 415th Night Fighter Squadron.

Lt. Schlueter is a tall, competent youngpilot from Oshkosh,Wisconsin, whosehazardous job was to search t he n ight skyforGerman planes and shoot them down.He had done just this severaltimes andhad been decorated for it. As one of ourbest nightfighters,

he was used to handlingall sorts of emergencies. With himasradar observer was Lt. Donald J. Meiers,and Lt. Fred Ringwald,intelligence officerof the 415th, who flew as an observer.

The trio began their search pattern,roaming the nig ht skies oneither side ofthe Rhine River north of Strasbourg —for centuriesthe abode of sirens, dwarfs,gnomes, and other supernaturalcharactersthat appealed strongly to the dramaticsense of the lateA. Hitler. However, atthis stage of the European war, the Rhinewasno stage but a grim battleground,where the Germans were makingtheir lastgreat stand.

The night was reasonably clear, withsome clouds and a quartermoon. There wasfair visibility.

In some respects, a night fighter planeoperates like a championboxer whose eytsight isn't very good; he must rely onother sensesto guide him to his opponent.The U. S. Army has ground radarstations,which track all planes across the sky. andtell the nightfighter the whereabouts ofany plane. The night fighter fliesthere,closes in by means of his own radar untilusually he cari seethe enemy, and if theplane doesn't identify itself as friendly,heshoot? it down. (Continued on page 43)

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Paul and Mike Daly with Mike's horse Woodsmoke

EVERYTHING about the Daly home isas American as a slab of applepie. Thesetting is pure New England —a big, whitecountry place,tucked off a road in the

Connecticut countryside. A sprawling liv-

ing room, lined with book shelves, chockfull of easy chairs forlong-legged young-

sters to sprawl in and read the Sundayfunnies.

We kids call it The House of Heroes,a tow-headed neighborconfided.

Then, in a tumble of excited words, hetold of Iron Mike Daly,the righting Irish-man who hit Normandy's bloody Omahabeach atH-Hour as a buck private. HowMike came home a year later wearingtheCongressional Medal of Honor, a SilverStar ribbon with two OakLeafs, a clusteredPurple Heart, and captain's bars. And aboutMike'sdad, Col. Paul G. Daly, retread,

who earned his D.S.C. and Legion of Honorin the second battle ofChateau-Thierry, his

Legion of Merit on Guadalcanal, the SiStar and the third clusterto his PuHeart leading the 398th Infantry Regimeagainst a MaginotLine fortress at Biche.

It sounded worth looking into

chapter and verse, it turned out to beof the great human storiesof the war.boy named Michael J. Daly grows uplegends of hisfather's fighting prowe

He's good at sneaking up on woodchuckand stealing apples andriding throufarmers' hay fields. A normal youngstwho wants to be ajockey, then afighter and, finally, a soldier.

Growing up, young Mike attends Geortown Prep in Washington, D.C. He's prdent of his class; a scrappy adolescent

plays his heart out on the gridirondiamond, eager to prove hewill wearname of Daly well.

War Mike is eager to enlist. An appoinment to West Pointintervenes. He wave

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DECEMBER, 1945 I 1

By Stan Swinton Legionnaire Paul, DSC in1918, was outstanding inWW2. Son Mike won his

commission in the field, got two clusters to his Si lver

Star, at 20 had the Medal of Honor

accepts a little reluctantly, and sees his17-year-old worldcrumble when a mathdeficiency brings dismissal.

Induction Mike, a Fort McClellan

rookie, refuses an IRTC cadre job whichwould lead to OCS. My dadis overseasand I might miss the war, sir, he explains.

So, an infantry casual, the loneliest, low-

liest berth in the GI world, Mike Dalygrinds through theembarkation mill:

Fort George C. Meade, Camp Shanks, POE,finally a replacementdepot in Britain.

The dice come up seven. His assignment:Headquarters Battalion,12th Army Group.A London M.P. wouldn't have a cushier

berth, but Mike has something to prove tohimself and to his Dad.He pesters his C.O.for a transfer to combat, finally winds upwithCo. I, 1 8th Infantry Regiment, *stU. S. Infantry Division, bloodedin the

wadis and djebels of Tunisia, his father'sWorld War Ioutfit.

A year passes. The buck private comeshome, a scared, beamingcaptain who hasbeen invested with the Medal of Honorby President(and Legionnaire) Truman.Fairfield, Connecticut, greets thegreatest

hero in its history with a parade and allthe trimmings. He's ablock off the old

chip, his mother beams, and Dad nods

Mike rather fancies the soupthat Sister Bevin cooked up

happy agreement. Legionnaires of George

Alfred Smith Post, the one his Dad hasalways belonged to,present him with a life

(Continued on page 52)

The Big Medal thrills Dermot. Alison,Purple heart in hand, doesn't yetrealize what they cost her brother

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The AMERICAN' LEGION M

By MacKINLAY KANTOR

lustrated by TRAN MAWICKE

THEN MRS. MADISON brought in an-other carton of ornaments, andMr. Madi-son said that he didn't know where onearth they'd findroom to put them —theyhad so many ornaments on the tree already.AndMrs. Madison said that she wishedhe'd keep his cigar away fromthose sput-tery green branches. And Captain Klosterstood and lookedserious.

Captain Kloster studied the tree, and hesaid that he guessedthose branches upthere —over next to those frosted buglesand things—he guessed those brancheswere rather bare in comparison to therest,

and maybe they had better put some of thenew ornaments upthere.

Move, George, said Mrs. Madison. Move that chair so CaptainKloster canget the step-ladder in there.

Mr. Madison said, pulling a red cornu-copia a little fartheralong its branch, I

don't think we ought to go on calling youCaptain Kloster all thetime. I don't think

Jimmy would like that.No, said Mrs. Madison. Jimmy

wouldn't like it at all. What did Jimmycall you? Charles? OrCharley?

Captain Kloster swallowed and smiledand lifted his head all atonce, which was anatural trick he had and a very engagingone. Youknow how it is in the Air Force;1 guess maybe in the rest of theArmy, too.Everybody usually calls you by your lastname. They callyou Anderson or Petrie orSolensky or whatever your name is.Usual-ly. Sometimes they kind of shorten it. Iguess that's whatmost of the guys did withme. I guess Madison —he used to callmeKlos.

Santa Klos? queried Mr. Madison,working hard at the jest.

No, sir. Just Klos.0. K. said Mr. Madison. Klos, if

you'll push that ladder over here next to thebookcase, you canget in closer to the top.

Jimmy Madison (he had an historicalname but they weren'tdescended from thePresident , that they knew) —Jimmy hadbeen deadexactly eight months minus oneday. This was the evening ofDecember24th, and Jimmy Madison's bomb groupflew their lastoperational mission on April

25th. It was Jimmy's thirty-third mission,

and he had the bad luck to be killed.

It was more or less Standard Opera-

tional Procedure for Mr. and Mrs. Madi-

son who had no surviving children, to in-

vite Captain Kloster to spend Christwith them, if he had nothingbetterand if he could get leave.

Kloster came all the way fromField, Florida, with brand newrailrtracks spangling his shoulders. Hevery serious, very old forhis twenty-thryears, very clean-scrubbed, shavenbrushed to afare-you-well.

Kloster was the closest the Madcould get to Jimmy now. HerepresentJimmy to them in ways they couldn'tscribe. He had eatenwith Jim, slepthim, played, sinned, worked andwith him. Kloster wasbombardierB-17 which Jimmy Madison hadabove the overcast on hislast flight.

Kloster was a brave young man, notbecause he had a Silver Starand a D.and an Air Medal and things l ike tha t.was a brave youngman because heto accept the Madisons' invitation.

were, in turn, brave people to offer it

SO NOW they hung high the othernaments, and they fretted withthestrings of little colored bulbs. Some o

bulbs were loose, some had been buout, but you couldn't tellwhich onesburned out and thus were holding ucircuit on the wholestring. It was qujob figuring out those colored bulbs

putting in new ones..Mrs. Madison yawned twice. Pet, said Mr.Madison, you

bed. Klos and I will finish this. AllChristmas cooking andeverything —

Said Captain Kloster, You hadn'tto have gone to so muchwork.

Nonsense, said Mrs. Madison,

kling up her pretty nose. I didn't

very hard, but I guess I will go to bed.

sleepy.

She moved closer to the tree andher face, and Mr. Madison bentdownkissed her firmly on the mouth. Mrs. Mson went away a step ortwo, thenturned and looked up at Captain Klo

on the ladder. The young man staredher a moment . . . with hisface colorhe came down the ladder, he stood obottom step and turnedhis face down,Mrs. Madison kissed him too.

Her eyes were blinking but she smsteadily at her husband andback at Cap

Kloster again. She went to the door,

halted to say: Be sure and don't forget

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DECEMBER, 1945 13

put on all those silver icicle doo-dads. In those two big candyboxes.0. K., said Mr. Madison. We'll put them on, and then shewent

off to bed.

Mr. Madison, said Kloster, after they had finished with thestringsof bulbs, you sure have got a swell wife.

Mr. Madison said, Jimmy thought he had a pretty swell mother,too.He sure did, said Kloster. He told me plenty about her, lotsof

imes.

Mr. Madison removed the lid from the larger of the two candyboxesand began to lift out the silver i cicle s tuff which his wifehad said hemustn't forget. This tinsel ice, he said, Jimmy alwaysliked it on the

Christmas tree. He said it made it look real.Kloster staredsolemnly at the box.

Mr. Madison said, Let's get going with this and then we'll beallthrough.

Yes, sir, said Kloster. How do you put it on?Just hang it on.Only it's all in a tangle: You have to look out. . . .

Take these long strips, like this, and hang them over the edgeof thebranches.

They worked for ten minutes. A distant radio sang withChristmascarols, and Mr. Madison and Captain Kloster could hear thecarols faintly.

This is the way we always did it, said George Madison. Lotsoffamilies do it several days before, but we belong to theput-up-the-tree-on-Christmas-Eve school. When Jimmy was little hethought that SantaClaus brought it; then when he was older anddidn't believe in SantaClaus any more, why —he liked to help, onChristmas Eve.

Sure, said Kloster. I guess that's a pretty good way of doingit.Presently Mr. Madison spoke again.

You know how it is. . . . Fellow has toface these things. Idon't know. Maybe Ihaven't talked enough to his mother about

t. Maybe not as much as I should, but —Well, there's just onething in the way. I

think if I knew —everything —I could facethe future all right. Iguess we've done

pretty well thus far. Not patting ourselveson the back oranything.

You sure have, Kloster told him. Itake off my hat to youboth.

I think if you would tell me a littlemore, Klos . . . see, theydidn't tell us

everything. Oh, we had a letter from thechaplain and then onefrom the C. 0. andall that. A couple of guys in the crewwrote ustoo. I mean besides yourself. . . .They seemed to think quite a lotofJimmy.

In silence, Kloster kept on hanging upthe strands of silver.

Well, I meant —you were with him. Ithought if you could tell usmore aboutit. . . .

Kloster said, Yes, sir, I could. I could

tell you everything. If you really want to

know—

I didn't ask you while Jimmy's motherwas here. I can tell herlater. But I cantake it all right. I was in the last war. Hada lotof guys killed —some of them in mysquad. I wish you would tell meabout it.

. . . Kloster said that the Jerry flak

wasn't very accurate, there at the end ofthe war —well, whatthere was was fairlyaccurate; but there wasn't a lot of it, andthefighters were almost non-existent;though once in a while a Fortwould getrammed by a Jet or something like that.American bombershad a way of releasingchaff to foil the German radar control,and

{Continued on page 34)

The young man stared ather as, her eyes blinking,

she lifted her face for herhusband to kiss

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By HAMILTON GREENE

The carrier planes, Tokyo-boundwhen the war ended, droppedtheirbombs in the ocean andheaded home —to fight no moreBILL SLEEPECKput the heavy TBMdown on the deck and she yanked to aStop, got herhook cleared, and moved upto a parking spot forward on theflight

deck, where I crawled out stiffly and took

off my helmet and said, Well, that's that.'We'd gone out for onemore slam at Tokyothat morning, but the strike had been re-calledby radio. We'd dumped our bombsin the ocean and come on back. Nomorestrikes —today or any time. The war wasover.

I walked back among the crowded, taxi-ing planes, back where Icould see Lt.

Bruninghouse, the Landing Signal Officer,wag his paddles at theboys coming in. Iyawned, leaning agains t the after 5-inchgunturret and watched Bruney. Great guy.

But for that matter, the whole damn bunchon the Essex were greatguys. It really wasa good ship —had done a mess of work inthis war.All finished now, however.

I looked out over the water at the rest

of Admiral Halsey's great armada of bigand little carriers,intermingled with alltheir sleek supporting craft, stretchingout

to the horizon and beyond, thinking, ''Theseships will neverfight again. The carrier isnow old hat. The world, it seems,nowcomes apart by physics. But looking atthem, my chest got just alittle tight, forwhat I was looking at was the great Fast

Carrier Task Force, the Force which hadcome to the Pacific justtwo short yearsbefore and which, when all is said and done,had justabout saved our lethargic necks.This was the same Force, variouslycalledTask Force 58 under Admiral Mitscher, orTask Force 38 underAdmiral McCain,which had established air supremacy overevery stepin the road on the long toughswing from the Gilbert Islands toTokyo.And as I watched the gray hulls heavingin the swells of theblue Pacific this bright

mid-August morning I thought, Damn myfellow countrymen forstinkers if they ever

forget these scows and the men who madethem great. And so let'sconsider them.

When the newly built Fast Carrier Force,with its big Essex ClassCV's, its CVX's,

new battle wagons, cruisers and destroyers,first came to thePacific during the sum-mer of 1943, it was at a time whentheCarrier Navy was pretty well beat to thesocks. The Navy hadexperienced almosttwo years of heroic, desperate warfareagainstJapan with a lmost all of it going

on the sad side. The old carriers were allbut gone —theLexington in the Coral Sea;the Yorktown at Midway; the WaspatGuadalcanal, and the Hornet at SantaCruz. The Saratoga and theEnterprise,both badly damaged, were taking turns attrying to keepafloat and at the same timeput up some semblance of combat.

But this great Task Force of brand newships and eager young menwas out tochange all that, and of course we all knownow how wellthose men and ships did thebusiness. You know their storybeginningwith the raid on Marcus Island, Septemberfirst of 1943,and how with bold and sweep-ing strikes they covered everymilitary

move in the great advance from the Gil-berts to Japan, writinghistory at suchplaces as Tarawa, Truk, the Marianas, the

Philippine Sea, Iwo Jima, Okinawa, andfinally Tokyo itself.

When they banded together in three ormore Task Groups to sailagainst theenemy, they made an impressive spread ofdeadliness, thelong clean hulls lashing the

cobalt waters of the Pacific in unison, al-

ways moving —always changing coursespeeding in close to thetarget area to

launch their airborne fury for several days,

then withdrawing out to sea to take on

fuel, bombs or supplies, and finally chasingin toward enemyshore once more to lacethe target from a different direction—likethe old cavalry raids.

Each of the several strikes lastedperhaps a month or six weeks.Then thewhole force would steam for the safety of

an island base to rest, rearm, and regroup,

but never lingering long. Then out theywent again to churn thesea with flying

spray, and make the Jap wish he hadn'tstarted the whole sillybusiness. On thecarriers themselves, in the meantime, it

had become a busy, dangerous, but highly

exciting way to fight a war.Not that the Fast Carrier Forcedidn't

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Illustrated by the Authoraboard the U. S. Carrier Essex

bundle of Buck Rogers stuff on Hiroshimaand the whole damn messwas washed up.

That, as you know, is the story of theFast Carrier Force itself—but like any-thing else, it could be no greater than thesum of itsparts, and it had done a spec-tacular job only because it wascomposedof rugged ships manned by rugged men.Let's glance at justone of these big CV's

and perhaps you can catch a glimpse ofwhat it meant to be aboardan Essex Classcarrier during the two years of duty justending.Let's think of the Essex herself, asan example, for she got outhere first, wasin it the longest, and she exemplified allthat wasgreat about all the great carriers.

To begin with, this grand old wagonmay once have been theprototype for TheFighting Lady —a glorious unit of Ameri-can seapower to be symbolized in terms ofa clean limbed Winged Victorybrandishingthe upraised sword of vengeance whiletrailing yards ofspotless cheesecloth, whip-

. . . hardly pausing in

their feverish activity

ve its troubles. Well known by this timethe story of its fightagainst the Kami-

zes at Okinawa, that dreadful 80-day

riod when the Japs sent out the Specialtack Corps, of which I'vewritten, torow their lives away with one idea inind —namely to sink the whole U.S. fleet.hey didn't do it, but the very fear ofecarriers inherent in their fury, made

inevitable that they would score manyutal hits. And so one byone, the Frank-

the Hanco*ck, the Enterprise, the In-pid, the Bunker Hill, andall the rest ofe heroic casualties staggered out of those

zing seas leaving trails of ruddy smokeern to mark where theyhad tangledth the suicides, but had come out second

st.

However, when all is said and done, the

amikazes failed. It was Japan's last des-

perate effort to get the carriers off her

neck, but after three months of furiouseffort, she just hadn' tpulled it off. Thecarriers were breathing hard, but most of

them were still in there swinging. And so,on July first, afterone month spent in restand regrouping, Admiral Halsey took the

Fast Carrier Force to sea for the last time

against an enemy that had shot its wad.Bloody but unbowed thecarriers sailedstraight for Japan itself and forthwith

kicked it apart. They sank the remnantsof her Navy and strewedthe last of herAir Force all over Honshu. One day theycreamed 1300Jap planes on the ground

and brother, that was a real deal to look

over

The B20/S went after the big areas, thecarriers pinpointed theremains. And thento cap it all. the Army dumped it- I'ttle

ping in the wind. But take a good look ather now. After all theslug fests she's beenin, she looks a lot more like abrawlingbarroom hag with run-over heels andpunched-in features. AKamikaze hit onher forward gun mounts has singed her eye-brows. Sheis battered and bent, scorchedand scarred, and she needs paint.When,during her final days at sea, a new inexperi-enced skipper wassent out by the Bureauto take her home for yard overhaul, hetookone look and shuddered, then did his

conscientious best to dress her up, take

the stink off her breath and make a lady ofher. But it was nogo. She made a rude noisein his face and went on punching theonly

way she knew how, which was fortunate,because she kept the newskipper's pantsdry and that, after all, is the main idea.

(Continued on page 62)

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The AMERICAN LEGION Mag

7%e C

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. . . and J^cx ike peopleFINER BUS TRAVEL OVER AMERICA'S BROADHIGHWAYS

In this nation, more than anywhere else in theworld, highwaysare the heritage of all the

people —a most vital part of their livelihoodand theirhappiness.

And intercity buses —which have carriednearly three billionwartime passengers since

Pearl Harbor —seek constantly tc- bring to thepeople of Americathe full benefits of their

priceless highway heritage. Through the years,

intercity buses have extended the convenience

and economy of highway travel to the peopleof every State. Theytake millions to and from

their daily employment. They bring trade andprosperity to smalltowns and giant cities

alike. They lead the way to all the scenicgrandeur ofAmerica.

All who depend upon bus transportationmay count on the bus linesto keep pace withthe continuing development of America's

highways, which are growing steadily longer,

and smoothe r and broader. Bus operators

already have completed plans for spacious

Write /or the new and interesting booklet, Modem

new terminals and inviting new wayside inns.And in the busesthemselves, the greatest

advances in travel comfort yet known can be

achieved through important changes in bus sizeand design. Planscall for wider, roomier seats

for greater riding ease . . . increased leg room. . . wideraisles . . . thicker wall insulation for

better control of inside temperatures. Engineer-

ing progress would, at the same time, enhance

the traditional safety of bus travel with larger

brakes, wider tires and increased road stability.

These and a host of other improvements are

just around the bend in the road for the

millions of people whose social and economic

welfare is daily enriched by bus transportation.

To assure that better day of travel, highwayauthorities all overAmerica are now consider-ing progressive s teps to modernizeregulations

enacted in the days of narrow highways. Their

rev is ion of outmoded limitations on bus size

and design will permit the finest and safest

public travel ever known on the highways.

Highways and How Tbey Can Serve You Better.

MOTOR BUS LINES OF AMERICANATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MOTOR BUSOPERATORS, WASHINGTON, D. C.

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That makes two of as who got what we wantedman's best friendthis Christmas, we say,

is likely to be the one who gives him aof Calvert.

r this superb whiskey is the real thing

...so smooth and flavorful it simply can't be

imitated That probably explains why, year

in and year out, Calvert is reported the whis-

key most often asked for by name

(P. S. While you're rounding up Calvertfor your Christmas list,pick up some for youown holiday hospitality. But be sure yougCalyert...if you want the red thing.)

CLEAR HEADS CHOOSE Calvert It's theReal Thin g

Calvert Distillers Corp.,N.YC. blended WHISKEY 86.8 Proof.Reserve - 65% Grain Neutral Spirits. . . Special — 12Vl% GrainNeutral Spirits

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DECEMBER. 1945

i I

Europe's Their DishBy John Groth

Through the Army's Special Services American soldiers are

getting acquainted with all parts of the Continent, which

is beginning to tick under the stimulus of Yank spending

IN EUROPE the letters SS used to spelldread and terror forthousands of unhappypeople. Today they signify SpecialServices,which means happiness for thousands ofAmerican boys whohave been set in theheart of the unhappy continent. Their dullworkof guarding bridges, watching workdetails and ferreting among thedirndlsfor the missing Adolf Hitler is enlivened

by baseball, football, basketball, golf, ski-

ing, jive and symphony, books and shows,tours and postcards, alllaid on by SpecialServices in the biggest story for the people

at home about our guys over there.The war is over and a guy hastime to

see and think. If he isn't kept busy doing

and seeing things he likes that help himforget the sights aroundhim ana addedto these, the worrying about whether thosebig-payingjobs will still be around when

A group gets the lowdownon the famous castle at

Heidelberg

he goes home, all of this is enough to sena guy right off histop.

There are those who say that German

women wil l f inal ly win the war and thatime spent infrauleins' arms helps drownthe unhappy thoughts but makes our guygood to the Germans when their jobto see that the Germans neverstart another war. The only thing that's goingdo much about lickingthe girl problemGermany is the Army Special Service pro-gram andit's going to take a programbig as the WPA back in the '30's tokeegirl-hungry GIs away from the neat, sweet-smelling frauleinswith their freshly

>crubbed skins and Lux-white clothes. Tthese hungry girls theAmerican GI withhis candy bars and cigarettes looks lik

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?0 The AMERICAN LEGION Magazi

Clark Gable even if he's only five feet four

and has a nose like a pickle.

SS headquarters in Paris laid down ajeep and gave me unlimitedorders to goanywhere in the thea tre to look at the

thousand ramifications of this great pro-gram.

At Heidelberg I joined my tour to thatof five GIs who were thereon a visit. Theyhad come by truck from Weingarten andwere thrilledpink to see, as PFC ArthurRiggall of Philadelphia, Pa., put it, aplace

I've read about and always heard about

'The Student Prince' —the place where guyscut each other's facesand like it. The usual I-hated-Hitler guy showed us throughthemiles of rooms and corridors, dungeonsand wine-cellars of thestoried castle. There

were American wisecracks of Who arethese Joes? ', meaning thestatues of theElectors in the ten-foot-high niches along

the walls, and What a bazooka alludingto a cross-bow in theweapons room, and

cries of Bury me here and I don'twanta go home when we enteredthewine-cellar and saw the duke's twenty-foot-high, io.ooo-gallonwine keg.

The Heidelberg tour is but one of dozensput on by SS. There aretrips to Paris andLondon, boat trips on the Rhine, visits totheBavarian Alps of Austria, and all-expense tours to Switzerland, thekind of

trips that cost hundreds of dollars in thedays before the war.Even picture postcardsare provided so the guy can ink in Xthewindow of a castle and write: Dear Mom.

I slept here in a king's castle last night.

At the opera house in Stuttgart, Iwith hundreds of GIs and heardBethoven's Fifth hold them. Lt. Don Schaderof Huron, S.D., SSofficer, told me ofentertainment program in Stuttgart, a prgram Ifound repeated in every occupiedGerman city. There are operaticprogramsever}' night, La Traviata and Carmen,put on by the localopera company. Hadel's Messiah, with three hundred afifty voicesand a symphony of 75 drecapacity GI crowds nightly, the heavystuffcompeting favorably with Bob HopShep Fields and Jack Benny. BobHohad packed 23,000 into the Stuttgart Sdium. When there wasn'topera or jivthere were plays. Night Must Fall a Kiss and Tell wereplaying to capacityhouses.

This might be the place to speakUSO shows and Special Service'shandlingof them. There has been some criticismof SS management bytop-flight stars.some cases the criticism has been waranted; inmost, it has not. The Army hits side of the argument as well.Certainname stars refuse to play before audiencesof under 20,000.The Army providesbest accommodations, and transportation,and doeseverything possible to maketours comfortable. Some starsasksouvenir guns and usually they're given

by some SS officer who got one earlythe war and has been wantingto takehome some day. One star asked for cigars,and half a dozenofficers jeeped hither ayon for hours, trying to find some. Whtheywere finally brought to him, the st

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DECEMBER, 1943 2

The fine art of American football

gets a demonstration at Nuremberg

didn't think that they were good enough.

One orchestra leader, feeling like upperbrass, wouldn't stay oreat in the samehotel with his band. These are thingswhich must beexpected in this greatest ofall entertainment programs. SS isthegreatest booking agency in the world, andwhen you've gotthousands of enter-tainers and hundreds of units there arebound tobe some unhappy incidents. Oneof the common complaints of soldierssitu-ated in outpost towns is their not having

seen Jack Benny or Bob Hope. This isbecause if just isn'tpossible to play in a

hundred places at once.In a village just outside Munich Isaw

a softball game, WACs versus nurses, notthe first softball I 'dseen. I never jeeped

through any town or village where our menwere stationed that asoftball wasn't being

lobbed back and forth across the street bya couple of helmetedguys just before messor in the few minutes between supper anddark.The dirndled and half-pants Ba-varians who were watchingunderstoodabout as much of what they were seeingas we Americans doof cricket, but it washard not to have a good time watchingthefemale form in motion. Bats, balls,gloves, and catchers' masks arebut a tiny

part of the trainloads of equipment dis-tributed throughout thetheatre.

A few weeks later in Nuremberg Sta-dium, I sat with 40.000 menwatching thefinal game of t he theat re basebal l cham-pionship.The big league name players, thebeer, co*kes, peanuts, score cardsand the Kill the ump '', Take 'im out , Bronxcheers and the playingof Take Me Outto the Ball Game and Three Blind Micewhen the umpirescame on the field hadthe 40,000 back in Wrigley Field orYankeeStadium instead of a place where 100,000storm troopers hadheiled Adolf the Firstand Last.

At Garmisch-Partenkirchen in the Alps

where the winter Olympics of 1936 hadbeen held, GIs wear inghelmet linersschussed, double-stemmed and herring-

boned on the s lopes of the Zugspitze, takingtime out now andthen to self-consciouslyslalom past and around on-lookingAlpineValkyries. The men had been broughtdown from Third Army tothe SS restcamp where they lived in a chalet-likehotel, eating offwhite tablecloths Ameri-

can food prepared by the best chefs, get-ting everything fromconsomme to pie ala mode, playing bridge and poker, drink-ing attheir own bar, wearing no ties,doing no saluting. When they feltlikemoving, there was tennis, and boating andswimming —and skiingsix thousand feet up.This was but one of the dozens ofrestcenters.

There are 62 hotels, run by the SeventhArmy alone, in France,Holland and Bel-gium, and large rest centers of severalhotels eachat Nancy, Dijon, Grenoble,

Chamonix. and on the Riviera.

At Pilsen in Czechoslavakia, in an arts

and crafts shop set up in an old Germaninfantry barracks room,dozens of GIswere whittling, painting and metal-working

away the waiting hours, making figured

ashtrays, pretty-girl water colors and car-tridge-cigarettelighters for friends at

home. SS has a school in Paris where menare trained to teachthese crafts. At Salz-

burg, Austria, Maj. John Sackas told me ofthe tons of leatherand the hundreds of

artists' paint boxes and the machinery for

cutting things, made available, as well astruck-loads of marblebeing brought up from

Carrara. Italy, for the big arts and crafts

center which they were setting up in awarehouse.

At Prague, also in Czechoslavakia. I

attended one of the international meets

between the Allies. SS had made possible

the sending of a swimming team from ;;dCorps to compete with theCzechs in theoutdoor swim stadium set in the banks othe Moldau. Itwas a cold day and it wasa rainy day, but the three thousandspec-tators, very pretty girls among them, hada good time as didour fellows. Althoughthe GIs lost all the swimming events,theycaptured the hearts of the girls of Prague.

In Berlin there was an internationaltrack meet in which theRussians wouldn'tcompete after a look at our runner*. W

(Continued on page 71)

A Yank stunt that reallystopped the show at Prague

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The AMERICAN LEGION Magazine

Buildin

Millions of /obs are

available in construction

work, for both trained and

untrained men, and some

authorities see a ten-year

boom just ahead in that

field. Here's what to do

if the idea hits you

where you live

By Murray Davis

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DECEMBER, 1945

THROUGHOUT the nation signs reading, Construction Men Wanted,are springingup. Their arrows direct applicants to rawexcavationsawaiting the next step in the

process of building, or plainly state the

address of the office of the home builderor constructioncompany.

This means that the shortage of buildingtrades mechanics isacute. It means, also,

that veterans who like to pound nails, slingpaint and buildthings, will find plenty

of opportunities, at high rates of pay, as

soon as construction gets underway.

But it isn't quite as simple as that, ac-cording to WilliamJoshua Barney, presi-dent of the W. J. Barney Corp., andchairman ofthe Apprenticeship Committeeof the Associated General Contractorsof

America, with headquarters in Washington,D.C. Apprenticeshipsstill will be necessary,he warns, for many of the returningvet-erans even though they have learned build-ing skills while inservice.

A considerable number of the youngerreturning veterans stillwill have to serveapprenticeships, for varying lengths of time,

before they can become journeymen, ex-plains Mr. Barney, becausethe building

e Youtraining and skill they acquired in sendeeis not enough torate them as all-aroundskilled mechanics.

However, these veterans will be givencredit for theirwar-acquired knowledge

and many will be upgraded, which meansthey'll have aconsiderable head start onthe rank greenhorns. In addition, they'llbegiven a chance to speed up their trainingtime throughapprenticeship courses.

These courses already are being estab-lished in most parts ofthe country underthe direction of apprenticeship boards or

committees made up of representativesfrom contractors' andbuilders' groups andunion officials. These boards or committees

are especially anxious to interest veterans

in these courses and are in touch with

American Legion Posts, Veterans' Bureausand kindredorganizations.

As a further inducement to veterans tolearn a building trade,established appren-

ticeship programs are specifically recognized

as educational courses under the AmericanLegion-sponsored G. I.Bill of Rights. Vet-

erans who qualify are allowed a subsistenceminimum of $50 amonth without depend-ents, $75 with dependents, tools and a

minimum of one year of training.These courses include carpentry,cabine

making, bricklaying, masonry, plumbingsheet-metal' work,

steamfitting,

electricalwork and most of the other building tradesFor moreadvanced training at the colleglevel, there are courses in suchsubjectsair conditioning, construction engineering,

reenforced concrete design and construc-tion, etc.

Veterans taking these courses may be ato work out a plan wherethey'll be gafully employed at the same time. Althoughtheadministrator, in such instances, mreduce the subsistenceallowance, ruling

available indicate that deductions will

be made until the earnings and allowanceequal a journeyman'swage.

Therefore, in many trades, the combineincome of the apprentice'spay and the subsistence allowance will be enough to attracyoungveterans, especially those who coin with a long-term view towardthfuture, Mr. Barney points out. Even hehowever, in some tradesthis combinedcome may still be low enough to warranconsideration ofrevising the apprentice-

(Continued on page 60)

builder, and Infantryman HansLauterbach, bricklayer, study asetof blueprints

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4 Thi AMERICAN LEGION Magazine

The Undoingof Old Hep

SAW correspondents come and I saw-orrespondents go when I wasthe publications officer of the 5 7 2d Parachute

fantry, but never did I see a correspond-

t like Harlbert Hepperson. Old Hep, as

e was called by his mil lions o f readers

ith proud affection, asked no quarter. Heas with the first-wavetroops on every

nding. His limbs were liberally speckled

ith scar tissue, evidence of the flesh

ounds he mentioned so casually in hisspatches. His contempt forperil, man-

made or natural, made GIs all over thecific throw away theircots and mos-

uito bars shamefacedly. He scorned theomforts of correspondents'quarters andesses, and there is even one observer whoaims to haveseen him eating a C rationscuit.

Nothing could stop Old Hep —until heet PFC Herman Frutig.Onemorning when the 5 2d Parachute

fantry was still in New Guinea, I gotord that Old Hep would makea stop atr Division and while he was there heould write an articleabout a representa-

ve paratrooper. I was to choose the rep-sentative paratrooper. Ichose PFC Her-

man Frutig. Not, I'll admit, because heas representative. Hardlythat. But. one other hand, he was a colorful cuss.

Herman could do 1,500 consecutive push-

ups on a hot New Guinea afternoon, thewhile reciting the firstthree chapters of

Treasure Island, including the punctuation

marks. Herman could do a handstand ofthirty minutes' durationwhile spinning a

fifty-gallon gasoline drum, full, on hisfeet. Most amazing ofall, Herman couldsmoke an entire El Toro cigar during aparachutedescent of only 300 feet. I wassure that Herman would warm thetyphus-ravaged co*ckles of Old Hep's heart.

HERMAN, 190 pounds of knotty muscleand no forehead, was standingin the publicrelations tent when Old Hep arrived. I hadjust beencoaching Herman on what to sayto Old Hep. (Not that Hermanneededcoaching on what to say; the trick was tostop Herman once hegot started.)

Old Hep strode into the tent, his large,inquisitive nose thrustout from under abattered pith helmet, two sharp blue eyespeeringthrough thick lensed glasses. I'mOld Hep,'' he said modestly. Apile of hiscolumns slipped inadvertently from a brief-

Drawing by WILLIAM VON RIEGEN

case under his arm and fanned out on thedesk in chronologicalorder.

''I've got them, Mr. Hepperson, I've gotthem. I cr ie d. I amCaptain McSweeney,public relations officer. And this is ourrep-resentative paratrooper, Private Frutig.

Meetcha, Frutig, said Old Hep. Meetcha, Harlotson, said Herman.I

got 72 jumps under my belt and only beenhurt oncet when myreserve chute openedbut a mere 100 feet above the ground —

''I suppose, interrupted Old Hep, youwant to ask me about allthose operationsI've been on. Well, my first show was quiteabaptism. Bribed the authorities to let mego up the Kokoda trail,foot slogging itevery inch with the boys. We had nothingthose davs.Just Yank guts and determina-tion.

I will admit, said Herman, that I waspretty scared that time.What happenedwas I forgot to hook up my static line andI f ree- fell one thousand, two hundred feetto a point merely but one hundredfeet

above the sun baked Georgia soil. But asgood fortune would haveit, fortunately Iluckily had the presence of mind to pullmy reservechute and it opened but onehundred feet above the sun baked —

It has never, said Old Hep, been that

bad since, although the public is fond of(Continued on page6g)

By Harry Nye

m Old Hep. he saidodestly, as a pile

his columns fanned out on tr-esk in chronoloaical order

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By Paul D. GreenWHEN WORD spread around JacobsBeach thatGovernor Dewey of New Yorkwas going to appoint a new AthleticCom-missioner, the cauliflower set wonderedout loud: Who's it gonabe? A politicalgee, an ex-pug, or a boxing writer? WhenGovernorDewey announced his appointee,Edward Patrick Francis Eagan, theychor-used, Who's Eagan? What's he everdone?

That reminds the handsome new Com-missioner of a Britishheavyweight whoasked the same question when he wasbooked to fightEager Eagan. HeddieHegan? he chirped. Oo's ee? Eeturned out to bethe original Yank at Ox-ford, who promptly laid him away andlookhis British Empire championshipfrom him.

Eddie Eagan's career seems to be a com-

posite of Frank Merriwell, Horatio Alger,

Richard Halliburton, Frank Buck and GeneTunney. At 46, he ishusky and vigorous,looks ready to step into the ring if offered

a good bout. Not many years back, hecould have passed for amatinee idol. To-day, good-looking in a Pat O'Brien sort of

way, he towers over you, but a slight stoop

makes h im look shorter than his bare sixfeet when you stand upand talk to him.He has Dempsey hands, a ruddy outdoorface with astrong nose which has lost

its sharpness from many ring encounters. Aconservative dresser,in keeping with his

legal background. Eagan affects no jewelryoutside of a modestwrist watch. Pleasant

to deal with, he surprises you with flashesof erudition, untilyou realize he was aRhodes scholar.

Already, since he's been on the job. Eddie

Eagan has shown Joe Louis's flair for hard-

hitting and Gene Tunney 's adept boxing

maneuverability. One of his duties is licening new boxers, andhe finds his commaof Spanish a great help in dealing withmanyMexicans, Cubans and Puerto Ricawho come down to his office. Ifpressed,can extricate himself from an embarrassingsituation inRussian, too.

Col. Eagan has many ideas aboutgeneral uplift of the sport —evenmorecise than those originated by the redoubtable Marquis ofQueensbury. His favoritetheory is a scoring system for judging bingmatches. He explains his system simply

I would give from one to four poinfor each round, he says. Idon't believin even rounds. It encourages lazy thining on the partof referees. A bare win shoucount one, a clean win two, aone-sidedround should earn three points, whilelopsided round with aknockdown wocount tops —four. A fight should end wa regular score,like football, which reflectthe aggressiveness, fightingtechnique,

fective punching and boxing ability ofcontestants.

Recent battles have been unofficially

scored in this manner, and the results hcoincided with actualdecisions. Col. Eagthinks many a fight formerly considereddrawwould have had a winner ifmethod had been used.

Eddie Eagan has a great antipathygambling —not the $2 bet placedbyDoakes with his friend —but the big t

(Continued on page 57)

Eddie, as he looked In 1925 whenhe knocked out the amateurheavy-weight champion of Australia, wh

was seven feet high, weighed 26

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6 The AMERICAN LEGION Magazine.

By ALVIN SUDDETH

HIS IS the story of my evolution frombeardless civilian into atrained soldier,

to a realistic veteran, and finally —at thee of 23 —into anenthusiastic member ofhe American Legion.

The story contains a moral.Service in war is a terrific teacher.It

uickens your thinking processes. It sharp-ns your perception. Itdevelops yournderstanding. It crams you with concen-atedexperience. It gives you beyond-our-years maturity of judgment andthelf-reliance to back that judgment.

My buddies and I, millions of us, learnedat war takes guts. Gutsis grit —unyield-g courage. The test of combat hammeredome to allof us one quick lesson. Three-urths of grit is git That's thesecret

our armed forces in winning the war.welve million Yanks learnedto git

—to Rome, Berlin and Tokyo —despite alle hell-spawned Nazis inEurope and Japs

in the Pacific. Sure, we paid a price in bloodand life. But thatdaring to pay was the it of that git in grit

I was proud to be an American fighting

man of 1945.Then it dawned upon me. We were not

a new make of Yanks. We were just a latermodel. Americansoldiers and sailors alwayshave had that git. They never lost awarValley Forge Gettysburg San Juan Hill

The Argonne ForestI became proud just to be an American.TheArgonne —it was nearest among the

epic American yesterdays. I recalled Dad'sdescriptions of those21 terrible days in

Hundreds of thousands who

saw service in WW2 havesigned up with the world's

largest war veterans' organi-zation. One of them tells what

caused him to take the step

Drawing by HENRY J. O'BRIEN

1 91 8 when the Yanks of World War I setout to git through theHindenburg Lineafter others said it couldn't be done. Thatwasmurderous hand-to-hand stuff. Everytrench had to be paid fordearly. I began

to see a great light. We—my buddies andI —were good only becausewe were chipsoff the old block.

For the first time I really felt proud of

the American fighting man of 1918 tooand it came straight frommy heart.

I felt more than that. I felt a new respectfor the men of thefirst AEF. They werethe guys I used to look at as old fogies

something out of my world. Now they stoodrevealed to me in a newlight. I began tosense a kinship with them. Under the dif-feringmantles of our respective years wewere as alike as two peas in apod. It be-

came c lear t o me why my dad has had TheAmerican Legion in hisblood for so manyyears. I was getting the first glimpses of

{Continued on page 66)

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ome guys(and gals)

have al/ the luck/

Home for Christmas . . . his one-and-only in his arms . . . andto top it offshe's about to hand him the finest gift inthe world ,a RemingtonElectricShaver.

There's luck for you

Remington Shavers are scarce thisyear. Production is stilllimited, andwhen you consider the millions who wantthem —well, onlythe extra-lucky cancount on having one this Christmas.

Another reason why there are so fewRemington Electric Shavers inthestores is that a large share of our pro-duction still goes tothe Army and Navyon priority orders. Wounded servicemeninGovernment hospitals and airmenwhose faces are susceptible tofrostbiteappreciate the extra comfort and con-venience of a goodelectric shaver.

But here's a suggestion. Should yourdealer be sold out, ask himfor one ofhis gift priority certificates.* This willreserve aRemington for you from his

next shipment. That's the next bestthing for a man who has hisheart seton a Remington Electric Shaver.

'DEALERS: // you do not have your owngift certificates to use,wire to our fac~tory for a supply of special RemingtonShaver Giftand Priority Certificates.

Illustrated— The famous Remington Threesome —S17.50. Alsoavailablein limited quantities, the new, streamlined Remington Dual—$15.75.

REMINGTON ELECTRIC SHAVERSNO LATHER NO BLADES SHAVE DRY

If you are fortunate enough to own a Remington, let us help youkeep it in good condition. There are Remington Shaver servicestations at Remington Rand stores in 77cities. If you cannot locateone near you, write to Remington Rand, Inc., Electric Shaver Div.,Bridgeport 2. Conn. In Canada, Remington Rand, Ltd., Toronto.

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DECEMBER, 1945

They Won t Use

COCONUTSBy PFC Joe Wilman

As told to Bob Deindorfer

Faster alleys, automatic pinsetters and auto-

matic range finders are z few of the newthings soon to be madeavailable to themore than 16 million Americans who con-

sider Bowling the Tops

A SHIRTLESS MARINE scratched a fresh score into the sand ofanunncharted Pacific island beach and grinned at his leather-neckteammate who just had scored a spare in their private bowl-ingtournament.

Another marine, a big, blond kid from Iowa, spun his ball downthealley. Five pins fell —and the ball rolled off the beach andinto the sea.

Laughing, the Iowa boy ran to the nearest coconut tree and shookdown another bowling ball. It was a fairly round coconut.

That coconut ball stuttered down the hard sand flat anddumpedfour more pins. The Marines went on with their bowlinggame.They never chalked their fingers before throwing becausetherewas no chalk.

In fact, the alley and the game were far different than the onesback home. Those Marines rolled coconuts instead ofperfectly-balanced balls. They used a sand strip instead of afinely-polishedwood alley, and they threw at pieces of drift wooddug into thesand instead of at varnished pins.

Yet it was bowling of a sort and the veteran -junglefighterswere having the time of their service lives. They markedout afull set of alleys on the sand flats. Ergo: The Coconut andDrift-wood League.

While those front-line fighters hand-made their game, morethan16,000,000 Americans in and out of the service were using civilizedequipment. The sport flourished in 20 nations. Evenservicemen basedat such outposts as Saipan, Guam and Dutch

Harbor competed on alleys as up-to-date as those back inAmerica.The Japanese troops learned their bowling lessons early inthewar. American civilian and service personnel stood on theYMCAroof during the first bombing raids over Shanghai. Tiring ofwatch-ing the Nip bombers come over, they went back to thebasem*ntand finished their bowling game. Learning of this, theJapaneseaviators wondered just what kind of a game had such a tightgripon Americans that it detracted from the spectacle offirst-hand

bombing.After the Pearl Harbor attack, the first war bondrallies were

held on the Hawaiian Islands. A war bond bowling tournamentwasscheduled. The Japanese learned of it. Jap radio broadcasts,beamedfor island consumption, laughed at the idea of bowling forworthless scraps of paper —American war bonds.

To show just what effect this had on them, the HawaiianIslandbowlers set a war bond sale record still unbeaten in thatterritory.

29

Here's a strike coming up for George Hill, NewYork Statetopnotcher, with a hook from the rightthat hit. No. I and No. 3 atthe same time

The Japanese still had more to learn about the strangeAmericansport of bowling. They learned it from soldiers of the 37thArmyDivision.

To those American troops engaged, the battle of the BowlingAlleyvs. The Yellow House always will be remembered as thetoughest fightin the Pacific war. The scenery of the scrap wassimple : TheJapanese troops held a yellow house on the Philippineisland, whilethe American 37th held a bowling alley building just

30 yards away.

Bloody and bitter —as, indeed, all of the Philippinefightingwas, more men were 'killed per capita in that fight than inanyother brawl in the vicinity. The Japanese attacked thebowlingalley for two consecutive days, according to armycorrespondents.They were driven back each time.

Relying on the underground, those Jap troops burrowed tun-nelsbeneath that 30-yard no man's land, running tunnelsfrom the yellowhouse to the bowling-alley building.

Thetoxin

for this was simple, however. Whenever a Jap head poppedup outof a tunnel hole, a generous American hand grenade wouldbe thrown.This served two ends: killing the enemy soldier andpartiallyjamming up the tunnel.

Ammunition was scarce on the field during those earlydays,however, and soon the American troops secured in the alleybuild-ing found themselves out of hand grenades. With Yankeepresenceof mind, the officers ordered bowling balls to replacegrenades.

The script was the same. Whenever a yellow head came out oatunnel, a 16-pound bowling ball was fireballed at it. We wonthebattle and to. those Americans who bowled their greatestgamesoff Japanese skulls it will remain the high point of thewar.

Boy, that's real bowling when you bounce the balls off headsodirty Nips, Pvt. Robert Muse of Douglas, Ar iz ., s ai d. One

night I got two strikes and a spare. {Continued on -page 40)

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The AMERICAN LEGION Magazine

The Noblest Game AliveBy Archibald Rut i edge

AS I eased myself out of my car, far backin the Carolinawilderness, the first thing

I felt was a heavy drop of warm rain outof the pithchblack sky.It was then a halfhour before daylight. With me was myfaithfulNegro hunter, Prince. As I could

smell the rain coming, the chance for killinga gobbler forChristmas, then three day'soff, was not cheering. But a hunter hastomake the best of circ*mstances, especiallyof the weather. I toldPrince to wait in the

car; I would go back on Hickory Hill, onthe edge of the vast andmournful river-swamp, there to see what I could do aboutvamping anold bearded man up to me.

The call I use I have worked over formore than twenty years; Itried more thantwenty-five kinds of wood before I got acombinationthat gives off a tone that hasboth It and Umph. A wild gobbler'sanaristocrat, and the wildwood princess youare simulating must nothave a voice like a

hefty barnyard damsel. This call of mine,

christened Miss Seduction, can make oneof the old heavy-shodboys collapse emo-tionally. He just can't take it.

By the time I got to Hickory Hill, wandaylight was breaking, butit was now

drizzling steadily. The woods were foggy.Everything wasdripping. I was dripping.In such weather wild turkeys may staylongon the roost

;or, gliding down silently, they

keep to old trails, or loaf under bushes.

They hate rain, and they don't like to moveabout much in fog andmist, probably be-cause the liers-in-wait and the stalkersamongtheir enemies can be shrouded there-in.

On Hickory Hill there's an old pinestump with a fringe of sweetmyrtle grow-ing around it. It's one of my favorite call-ing places.But on this morning the stumpwas wet and the myrtles were wet,andthere was no overhead cover. I therefore

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DECEMBER, 1945

walked over to a dense cedar-tree, throug'.i

which the rain was only dripping. I satdown, took out my call,and touched it.To my surprise, an old buck whistled wildlyand thencrashed away through the swamp.As it is absolutely fatal to calltoo much,

I waited for full ten minutes before touch-

ing Miss Seduction again. During that in-

terval I neither heard nor saw anything,

but I had uneasy visions of eating pork

sausages for Christmas. The woods weresoundless and eerie infrhe softly swirling

fog. It really was no kind of morning forany sort of hunting.The visibility was solow that there was genuine danger that amanmight mistake a buzzard for a wildturkey; and what a mistake thatwould be,my Countrymen

The second time I touched my call,faintly, out of the veilingmists, from far-off, came a very drowsy Keow, keow.

I knew that if one turkey were answer-ing me, I probably couldlure him withinrange; but with a flock, that would be dif-ferent.Members of a flock may answera call, but they will say, All right;you

come on over here.I retreated to my wet stump, where the

myrtles would shield me. I did not callagain. Fortunately an oldtrail led fromwhere the birds were to my rendezvous. Aslight soundahead of me made me get mygun up. And I might say that inhuntingthese old boys I always use 4's in my rightbarrel, 2's in myleft. In a minute or twoI saw the dull gleam of lustrous wetchest-nut plumage. Though I have hunted wildturkeys for fiftyyears, this was the onlytime I had ever called up a flock. Heretheycame, sixteen of them. Alone in the wilder-

ness, I had a perfect chance to make a dragshot into the flockon the ground. Theywere well bunched. But that's illegal; per-hapsmore important, there's no sport in it.As they entered a littlearena, they beganto spread out, scratching in a desultory

fashion. I made up my mind to nail thebiggest gobbler on theground, and thentry for another when they flew or ran. Asa rule,hens are quicker to take wing thanare gobblers, especially heavyones. And asa sudden sho t o ften bewilders these birds

(as it would you or me), a man usuallyhas time for another. Asmy gun spoke, anold veteran with a beard like a prophet

collapsed; the air was then full of turkeys,and some ducked backinto the thickets. Ikilled a second gobbler as he was toweringforthe pine -tops . We would celebrateChristmas after all.

Prince 1 had left in the car in the rama full mile away. 1 don'tknow how he doesthese things, but by the time I was pickingup thefirst gobbler, he was with me. Thesebirds weighed 22 and 20 pounds—theformer just about the limit for the true

wild turkey. Once in the snowy Pennsyl-vania mountains I killeda gobbler that

weighed 31 pounds; but he did not havethe faultless grace andstreamlining of thereal aristocrat; his feet and legs werehuge; hishead and neck were too big andtoo red; and I know that he hadbarnyardrelatives. The genuine wild turkey is atailor-made bird,tall and slender, with pink

legs and indigo head. His alertness is keenand constant ; and hestarts in high.

In country such as mine, where both thedeer and the wild turkeyabound, it isnatural to compare their senses; and theirsenses aretheir life insurance. The turkeyhas by far. the keener eyesight.Everyhunter knows that if he does not move,and if a buck does notwind him, he mayhave to get out of the animal's way. A deerdetects,at a long distance, a movement.

But what might be called his static eye-sight is poor —at leastcompared to the wildturkey's. One of these great birds will seeandwill identify a man even if .the mannever winks his eyes. If a deersees amotionless man, he will say, That's just astump. But if awild turkey sees a stump,he will say, Look yonder. That may beaman. I have had a wild turkey turn awayfrom me at a distance offull two hundredyards, and though I had not moved, I knowthat hehad made me out.

Once, just at sunrise, I was stalking awild gobbler, roosted ona g iant cyp ress. Imade the stalk all right by usinginterveningtrees. At last, within easy range, flattenedagainst thebole of a big sweet-gum, I got

ready for my shot. But I was not waryenough. I let the barrelsof my gun projectto the side of the tree. The light of therisingsun glinted on the steel. That wasenough. That old bird stormed offacrossthe river, and I went home without evenmuch of an alibi.

When it comes to the sense of hearing,I think the deer and theturkey are abouton a par, but there is this difference: the

wild turkey is more sensitive to noise thana deer. I think he ismore easily startled.know that in deer-driving, if there arebothdeer and turkeys in the same area, theturkeys will always comeout first. I onceroused an old buck from a little clump oipines notmore than two hundred yardsfrom the uproar of a sawmill. You'llneveisee a wild turkey near such a place. Thetruth is that the deert akes rather kindly

to civilization, whereas the turkey does not.

I have noticed that when a tract of timberhas been cut, the deerdo not seem to mindthe thickets that spring up; but the turkeys

will desert such an area. They love openwoods, the more primevalthe better; and

it should always be remembered that theymust have old trees inwhich to roost.

No game animal, I think, has a bettersense of smell than thedeer; often he relies

on it alone for safety. Insofar as I have

been able to determine, after a lifetime in

the woods, the wild turkey does not use

his nose for self-protection. On many oc-casions, though theopportunity to do so

was perfect, I never saw one ever give any

sign that he had winded a man.In maintaining a daily routine,the wild

turkey is like the grouse or the quail; but

of course he travels farther. Then, he mayjust take a notion toquit the country. Hemay be here today, and tomorrow he may

(Continued on page 34)

Hunting wild turkey is Something

Special: You've got to have a lot

of patience, and you'll be lucky

if your tricks fool Mr. Gobbler

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32 The AMERICAN LEGION Magazine

That Fantastic RadarBy Norman R. Goldman

Behind-the-scenes incidents showing what Allied supe-

riority in radar contributed toward winning the war

BACK IN 1 94 2 the cavity magnetron, whichmade airbornemicrowave radar possible,was one of the Allies' top secrets. Sothere

was considerable excitement when, one No-vember afternoon, amagnetron popped out

of a B-24 somewhere over Virginia. For

three days picked air force personnelscoured the countryside,not daring to tell

anyone the object of their hunt.

The Liberator fitted with one of theearliest microwave ASV(Air-to-Surface-Vessel) radars, was returning to Langley

Field, Va., af te r a day of anti-sub tests.The tests wereespecially important becausethe aircraft was soon to leave forEngland

to pitch into the U-boat war. Aboard wasWing Commander E. I. R.MacGregor.RAF radar specialist, and most of the AAFcrew that was totake it over.

As they approached the field the sergeantwho had been hoveringover the radar, ad-justing this and tightening that, beganre-tracting the extended belly turret which

housed the antenna and modulator, includ-ing the cav itymagnetron. He did this byturning a wooden handle which revolvedthetwo long retraction screws that held

All three showed bright and clearon the scope

the turret to the plane. Isn't it coming upslow? ventured W/CMacGregor after along time.

Seems to, said the sergeant.As they leaned over to survey thesitua-

tion there was a grating sound and the righthand screw left itsmooring, leaving theturret dangling downward.

W/CMacGre-

gor straddled the hole and tried to drag it

On the way eastward they ran intoa tight formation of 30Jerries, going

the opposite way

back, but he was helpless against 300 lbs.

plus a slipstream. After a breathless mo-ment the other screwgave way and the in-stallation —turret, magnetron and allplunged1000 ft. downward. The sergeanthad been winding out instead ofin.

At Langley Field nearby several men hadseen the big cylindricalobject drop and

noted the position. But though the search

was narrowed the army of hunters madeslow progress. After threedays the turret

and its scattered cargo were found in aswamp. The antenna wassmashed but thecavity magnetron, for which the enemygladly wouldhave paid a tremendous price,was intact.

Once in action-, the cavity magnetron re-mained a secret formany more months andcontributed heavily in the radar successes

of All ied bombers.

COL. DAVE SCHILLING, CO. of the 56thFighter Group and a top AAFace to boot,was rough and ready and always handedout the orders inthe air. Yet on at leastone occasion a non-flying lieutenanttold

him what to do and made him like it.It happened two days beforeChristmas,

1944, while the Germans under Field Mar-shal von Rundstedt weremaking their all-out thrust into the Ardennes. Everythingthat theAAF could send up was in the air,including Col. Schilling with 47Thunder-bolts behind him. He was hell-bent forleather,, eager torip into anything with a

swastika painted on its wings.

Spots by FRED ENG

But on the ground some miles awaybig ground radar known inair-to-groundtalk as Nuthouse saw the whole picture

in t he sky. -It saw Col. Schilling's Thunder-

bolts coming along with other AAF fight-ers and it saw othertargets which, by their

disposition,it

knewto be bandits. Because

Nuthouse commanded a view of the skyCol. Schilling had beeninstructed to Iodi

to it for guidance. It so happened that L

Craig, a youthful AAF radar controller,was the one to giveit.

The P-6 1 s opened fire, and after a fewbursts the transportcaught fire an

exploded

On the way eastward Col. Schilling'sfighters ran into a tightformation of 3

Jerries, going the opposite way. Col. Schil-

ling was all for bouncing them then anthere.

Keep going, said Lt. Craig, There'sbigger game ahead.

But other enemy fighters kept coming

the air was thick with planes that dayand Col. Schilling fumedand stewed at L Craig's obstinacy.

Over Bonn the radar controller said, Look sharp. Here it is. Anda momentlater the 48 Thunderbolts were tangling

with 250 ME- 1 09s and FW-190S in onethe hottest battles of thewar. When it waover the 56th Fighter Group, with slijht

loss, had knocked down 35 of # the enemy.Col. Schilling wascredited with one of th

best individual scores of the war —five. Hireport read:

. . . Group leader regrets questioningNuthouse's judgment.

(Continued on page 48)

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Their calendars are years aheadThese men are metallurgists. Theyaretapping a miniature electric furnacein a Republic Steellaboratory. Theyare again checking the formula ofone of the highlysuccessful standard-ized war steels with the idea of im-proving itif possible— and making itfully adaptable to peacetimeproducts.

You may meet this steel in your 1946car, or in the automaticwashingmachine you buy in 1947, or the planein which you hop thePacific in 1950.You will find it in hundreds of post-war products,for your personal use,for your home, for your business.

When Republic metallurgists wereasked to develop

an armorplate that

could not be pierced by large calibreprojectiles, they producedit. Whenthey were asked for a new projectilesteel which wouldpierce that newarmor, they did that, too. Then theydeveloped a newarmor plate to stopthe new projectiles— and so on until

special war steels had been perfectedfor hundreds of uses.

These standardized steels of the futurewill be strong— tough—light— longlasting—good-looking—economical-easy to fabricate.

It is this constant working for im-provement that bringsprogress.Republic metallurgists developed thecold drawing of steel—the firstchromium vanadium steels— the firstnickel-molybdenumsteels —the firstchart for standardizing grain size insteel—electric weld oil country p