Gen. Douglas MacArthur is pictured on the front page as he visits U.S. forces on New Guinea… Page two reports that most Navy Department employees will be working out of the Pentagon by next month… An AP war correspondent describes a bombing raid against Buna on page three… Former World War I aviator Clayton Knight’s series continues on page six…
George Fielding Eliot column on page 11… A 14-part series on Capt. William L. Osborne and Capt. Damon J. Gauses evading the Japanese for 159 days begins on page 15… Sports section begins on page 40, which announces that Brooklyn Dodgers third baseman Lew Riggs has joined the Army Air Force. Riggs will serve in the Pacific and is player-manager for the 313th Bombardment Wing’s baseball team.
Roving Reporter by Ernie Pyle
IN ENGLAND — These last few days I’ve been whisking rapidly from “Somewhere” to “Somewhere” by train, jeep, Austin and bicycle, and running onto the damndest people.
For instance here in this place, smack into Lieut. Tom Cherry, who hails from that sunny, blissful garden spot of the world (adv.) — my home town of Albuquerque.
Anybody would know Lieutenant Cherry was from New Mexico without asking him, for he wears a heavy silver ring with a big turquoise setting — the mark of the Southwest.
Cherry has been with General Motors in Dallas and Oklahoma City the last few years. But he went back to Albuquerque and got his family settled just before going into the Army. His parents are there in one house, and his wife, grandmother and 9-year-old son Bobby in another house.
Actually he has been in our fair city more recently than I have. He said that on account of New Mexico losing so many boys on Bataan, it was getting so people in Albuquerque were apt to stop you on the street, if you looked fit, and ask you why you weren’t in uniform.
Lieutenant Cherry has a little black British sedan assigned to him over here, and lives in a big comfortable room with five other officers. They have family photos on the walls and nice beds and easy-chairs. They are aware of how lucky they are.
We were sitting around their quarters late one Sunday afternoon, and they got to telling me the stunts they pull on each other. Such as fixing the legs of the cot for the last man in, so it will collapse when he gets into it.
In blackout countries, you know when the majority in a room are ready for bed, they turn out the lights, remove the blackout boards or curtains from the windows, and then whoever comes in late has to feel his way to bed in the dark.
These officers rack their brains thinking up tricks on the last man in. One night they stacked trunks and stuff right in front of the door, so the poor sucker would fall over it. They were humane enough to lay his mattress on the floor to ease his fall. And they put dead rats and all kinds of flora and fauna into each other’s beds.
“Isn’t that something?” Lieutenant Cherry said. “We are all grown men, most of us past 50 and with families and settled down into serious ways before the war, and here we are acting like a bunch of high-school sophomores. It’s just because there isn’t a damn thing else to do to entertain ourselves around here.
In the same camp I ran onto Lieut. Robert Rose, also from our part of the country — El Paso. He was an assayer and chemist for the El Paso Smelting Works. He has become a father since he went into the Army. The offspring is Robert Jr., now 6 months old.
Lieutenant Rose did get one look at his progeny, for he had Mrs. Rose come east just before he sailed. He says two men in his company have children they’ve never seen.
There must be thousands of them over here like that. And they all make the same crack about the kid saying “Mama, who’s that man?” when they finally get home.
“You know,” Lieutenant Rose says, “we used to go over the Juarez so much we’d get tired of it and not go for long stretches. But what wouldn’t I give to go walking across that bridge right now.”
I stopped at another camp today, just long enough to have lunch in the officers’ mess. The men on either side of me were Capt. Edward B. Kime, of Huntington, W. Va., and Capt. George E. Schuette, of St. Louis.
Captain Schuette has two children and Captain Kime three. Captain Schuette says he had to promise his wife he’d be home from the Army in ten months before she’d let him go. He’s only got four months left. It looks to me as though somebody’s gonna have to fight awfully fast to keep Brother Schuette out of the doghouse.
Captain Kime writes to his wife all the time, of course, but he thought it would be fun to send her a surprise message through this column. “What do you want to say?” I asked him.
He thought a while and then said, “Well, we bought a new house and she’s been trying to get a lawn started, so you might tell her in the column that I hope she has some grass for me to cut when I get home.”
Got it, Mrs. Kime? Surprised? But I wouldn’t coax that grass along too fast on the strength of this, if I were you. I’ve an idea you can just take your time with it.
Evening star. (Washington, D.C.), 3 November 1942. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83045462/1942-11-03/ed-1/
