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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Seaforth News, 1943-03-11, Page 6WRITTEN SPECIALLY FOR THE' WEEKLY NEWSPAPERS OF CANADA JIM GREENBLAT, Editor of Um SUN $WIFT CURRENT. SA$KATCHewAN. RATIONING We who think in terms cd 50 chickens and four cows can hardly conceive the magnitude of the task in planning and distributing the mil- lions of Number 2 Ration Books which you may or may not yet have wheel you read this. "This rationing is something, which affects about 1.12 million people 24 hours in every. day," quietly said L. B. Unwin, Can- ada's rationing chief,in his Montreal office. lust a little background of M Unwin will serve to show why looks to me that these wartime jo are being efficiently handled, sounds a little Horatio Alger. At 5 Mr. Unwin is vice president charge of finance for the Canadl Pacific, and president of their gro Airlines. He came out fro Kent, England, at sixteen and in 2 years reached his present job, H was a railway clerk at Chapleau 1908. He won the Military Cross f bravery in the first Great Wa starting out as a buck private, en ing as a Major. He now serves with- out cost to his country. Tall, unob trusive, baldish; astronomical fi ures, big jobs, he takes in his strid Local Boards in National Set-up You wondered why your Loca Ration Board was set up, with it for -a -time inactivity. Now you prob ably know. It was all part of a n tion -wide scheme to do a tremen dons job with the least disturbanc and at a minimum of cost to the tax payer. There were wheels revolvin within wheels, policies to be deter mined before Mr, Unwin's crew go going. Then there had to be direct- ives to those who would do the act ual work in cities and towns from Sydney, N,S., to Victoria, B.C. Just imagine the confusion—not • to even think of your own feelings, if you had come in from the farm on a blustery day and some inefficient, if patriotic, volunteer had got your card all balled up. But all this had been taken care of while you sat out the winter around the pot-bellied stive. The Distributing Chief ap- pointed by your own Local Ration Board had definite instructions on every tiny phase of the operation, and so did the other volunteer work- ers who are doing, or did, something which is their contribution to the war effort. Just think of it: all these folks working without remuneration. That's the hone front for you. It m. -ane a big saving to the taxpayer, too. Mr. Unwin told of the different sets of conditions which had to be provided for in distribution for ur- ban and rural centres. That was worked out beforehand, with leeway given the local distributing chief be- cause he knew local conditions bet- ter than the fellows in Ottawa or Montreal. The Story Behind Ration Books Do you know that the King's Printer started delivering ration books to the administration between January 20th and 26th at the rate of a million a day, with the distribu- tion, Dominion -wide, set for Feb. 19 to March 1st You know yourself what was in each book, They were in cartons of 1,500 books each, banded in 50's. There had to be provision, I was told, for additional sheets in re- gulative quantity, of course, for und- erground soft coal miners and dia- betics. Just imagine the detail in- volved, and still in this set of Mont- real offices with its clatter of type- writers and ringing of 'phones there was radiating all over Canada, with decision and clarity of purpose but an absence of any bedlam, a distrib- ution of ration cards so vast as to stultify the imagination unless one was on the scene. As you know the No. 2 book was not mailed out, but you folks had to "come and get it." Some of us just hate to put,ourselves out and the ad- ministration realized that. They real- ized also that Canadians do not have to be Gestapo'd into anything, and are amenable to reason, And why shouldn't they be, with a war on? If we want to play rummy in the back .of John Blacic's real estate office,, the government doesn't, move John's premises to your doorstep. So, � Mr.. Unwin's outfit wasn't a bit disturbed about Canadian consumers' reaction to this decision. Distribution is Complex They had to be sure that every town of 500 people had at least one distributing centre; that cities of 100,000 or more had offices located strategically to aceemmoclate busy r, it. bs it 1, in an ow - m 7 e in or r, d - people, to avoid bottle -necks, even going so far as to issue instructions that doors in the places decided on were conveniently located to avoid congestion. We wouldn't think of things like that out our way. Do you know Iwas oven shown how •illstruc- tions were sent out on how the tables were to be arranged to handle people quickly. The administration, for instance, had to figure out such things as re- turn of cards from ration book No. 1 which were handed in before you got a new one; and the green sheets for tea and coffee which were jerked out from children's books. Each and every book, card or sheet has to be accounted for to avoid letting any unscrupulous person get their hands on them. Mr. Unwin told of the vast num- ber of volunteer workers necessary to put the job over. Reports coming to bis office, analyzed and bird's -eye - viewed for his benefit, show that Canadians responded` and saved the nation millions of dollars which can be converted to tanks, planes, guns and other instruments of war, "The - success of the whole scheme will de - g- pond," he said, "upon the resource - e. fulness and on the hard work which everyone contributes." They rely on 1 that, here in this Montreal headgear - • ten of consumer rationing. - As an otitsider looking in, I felt a- they had evolved a system which - aimed at simplicity combined with e effective control. " I didn't think Lhad to bother these g I people with questions on the why iand wherefore of rationing. The t i necessity is plain logic and doesn't (take any undue reasoning. - In previous and following articles the picture of Canada's wartime per- sonal and collective economy is painted just as factually as I can make it from on the spot. If you or I want to criticize methods, that's a democratic privilege. So hop to it if Iyou feel the urge. But at least you are getting a little of the background , I hope. The Line Squall By an R.A.F. Flight Lieutenant. We were on convoy duty near Freetown, West Africa, when a line squall broke. It's one of the most terrifying tropical storms. An enor- mous wall of black cloud rise, six- teen thousand or eighteen thousand feet, forming a definite line at about a thousand feet above water level. Every hundred yards or so a water snout runs up to the bottom of the cloud layer. The line of the storm we ran into was 120 miles long and about thirty miles thick. When you meet a thing like that there are two things you can do. One is to go straight through it at low level. If you do that you fly through something that seems like ;olid water. It's as black as night and the wind tosses your aircraft all over the sky, smashing it down to within a hundred feet above the sea. The instruments stop working, and when you come down you actually bounce on the cushion of ascending air currents. The other way is to try to get around the storm. That's what I tried to do, I flew along the line with one wingtip actually in the wall. At one point we were flying with the engines throttled back registering a fifteen -hundred -feet -a -minute climb and 175 knots speed. Then something went wrong with the engines. It was impossible to land on the water for a twenty -foot sea was running. I tried to stall the plane t ocome down fiat, but it bounced fifty feet. Between the next two seas it dropped seventy feet with such a crash that it broke its back just behind the pilot's seat. Though 7 didn't know it at the time, I frac- tured my spine. I had given the eleven members of the crew the warning, and one of them had gone to the bomb robin to try to put the depth charges to safe- ty because they were fused to go off in fairly shallow water, We never saw hies again, While we clambered up on top of the rapidly sinking plane, two nen dived to get one of the dinghies, They brought up only a very small one. But we had no time to try for another. The depth charges might go off at any moment. With a couple of aluminum paddles and with some of the men swimming alongside pushing the dinghy, we shoved off, Tli4 S4AFV.a TH NUW After two bolus part of the rubber burst and we had only holt is dinghy lett. We lashed up the deflat- ed side so that two people could lie in it, mostly under water, and one other could lie on the inflated side. We decided that every man after three bolus in the water could have half an hour resting on the dinghy. Nearly every time anyone climbed on to the dinghy it upset, We lost 'the paddles that way, The nights were the worst, except that then it was Warmer in the wat- er than out of it. Dogfish and jelly- fish bothered us, One man was badly bitten, and I was attacked while I was lying on the inflated part of the dinghy lily second in command, a lad from Saskatchewan, took charge and set a magnificent example, Time after he sacrificed his rest period in the dinghy. Of the first forty-eight hours adrift, he spent forty-five swimming alongside in his Mae West, Finally I had to order him to the dinghy so that we could massage his legs. He was suffering extreme pain, but he simply wouldn't give in. The ,only provisions we had for the ten of us were three tins of tomato juice. We opened the first one after thirty-six hours had passed. The morning after we had another one. At times we saw aircraft and nav- al vessels even within half a mile. But we had no distress signals to send up. At the end of forty-eight hours a Hudson found us and .dropp- ed four" single -seater fighter -type dinghies, some emergency rations and sone water bottles lashed to Mae Wests. But the bottles fell off on their way down. Everybody was very weak by this time, but two men volunteered to swim out for the dinghies and the food. The farthest was about a quar- ter of a mile away. We paddled the wreck of the dinghy- after them, What a feast we had on the malt tablets and biscuits the Hudson had dropped! The Hudson had signaled a destroyer would be along by six o'clock that evening, and on the strength of that we drank the re- training tin of tomato juice. ramm- ing it was ten -thirty next when the Hudson and two Sund- erlands appeared. An hour later the destroyer arrived and picked us up. By that time there were only nine of us, for one man who had drunk sea water had gone out of his mind and died. MACHINERY RATIONS The Administrator of• Farm Mach- inery has announced that farm machinery rationing offices haire•been set up in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmon- ton, Regina, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, London, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec, Saint John, Truro, and Char• lottetown. Experienced men have been assigned to these regional of - flees to appraise the equipment necles of the farmers in their respective districts, with a view to obtaining the best possible distribution of the limited supplies of new machines available. Naval Awards for C.N,S. Officers 7 8 77T�oNoas and promotions have been 1j received by twelve former offi- cersiof the Canadian National Steam- ships now serving in the Royal Canadian Navy. All of those so honored' are professional seamen who entered active service from their peacetime assignments through the Royal Canadian Naval Reserve. Five of them, commencing as apprentices, served their entire sea -going career with the company. Of those who were accorded recognition in the Honors List, three were appointed to be officers of the Military Division of the Order of the British Empire, and one was awarded the Distinguished Ser- vice Cross. Eight officers of the Royal Cana- dian Navy who had formerly served on the deck, in the engine room and in the purser's department of the Cana- dian National Steamships received promotions. Shown above: Order of the British Empire: 1. Lieutenant -Commander N. V. Clarke, R.C.N.R., whose home is in Halifax. He was formerly a first officer in the Canadian National service and had been ,with the coin - 9 pany since 1923. 2. Lieutenant (Engineer) L. G. F. Despre's, R.C,N.R. of Montmagny, Que., formerly a second engineer in the steamships. He joined the engine room forces of the company in 1930, 3. Lieutenant -Commander (Engin- eer) A, B. Arnison (Torpedo) of Van- couver, who prior to joining the Canadian Navy had 18 years service with the company's Pacific Coast fleet. Distinguished Service Cross: 4. Acting Commander D. C. Wal- lace, R.C,N.R., a native of Pictou, N.S„ whose home is in Halifax, and a former Chief Officer with the Cana- dian National Steamships. He entered the service in 1921. Promoted to Commander: 5. Commander 0. C. Robertson advanced from Lieut. Commander. His home is in Montreal. IIe started his sea -going career with the C.N.S. as an apprentice in 1924, and served with the company until he joined the Navy. FIe is now senior officer of 1I.M.C.S. Prince Robert, which the naval department statement terns "a renowned auxiliary cruiser which has figured in several major operations 10 11 of this,War." To Lieutenant Commander: 6. A. K. Young, of Montreal, form- er Chief Officer in the C.N.S. service; began as an apprentice in 1922. 7. H. D. MacKay, of Halifax, began as an apprentice in 1930, was Third Officer in 1934, and First Officer when he joined the navy. 8. E. W. T. Surtees (Engineer), of Montreal, a former chief engineer with the steamships, joined the service in 1926, serving in various engine room capacities. 12 To Paymaster Lieutenant Commander: 9. C. R. Boggs, of Montreal, joined the C.N.S. in 1931. 10. A. S. E. Sillett, Saint John, N.B., had been in the company's service since June, 1936. 11. H. R. Northrup, whose home is in Saint John, N.B., joined the office of the company in 1931 and became purser's clerk in 1935. 12. W. J. Marshall, of Montreal, joined the staff of the Canadian National Railways in 1930 and two years later transferred to the purser's staff of Canadian Nat isna(Steamships, Rest Cross food paresis arrive at a German prison camp "sonewhere in Europe." The Canadian Red Cross has sent more than two million such food Parcels to Canadian and British prisoners of war in enemy camps in Germany, Occupied France, Italy and Africa slime the outbreak of war. Present output is 100,000 each week from five Red Cross packing depots in Canada. Papa glared sternly at his young hopeful. "Another bite like that, young man," he said, "and you'll leave the table." _ Sonny looked up. "Another bite like that," he agreed, "and I'll be finished." Want *and For Sale Ads, 1 meek Sc2 AUCTIONEER F. W. AHRENS, Licensed Auction• ser for Perth and Huron Counties +Carni Stock. chattels and real estate Sales Solicited. Terms on Application. prope"ty, R. R. No. 4. Mitchell. Phone 634 r 6. Apply at this office. HAROLD JACKSON Licensed in Huron and Perth conn. ties. Prices reasonable; satisfaction guaranteed. For information, write or phone Harold Jackson, phone 14 on 661; R.R. 4, Seaforth. •� counter Check Books 41 ,. We Are Selling Quality Books. Books are Well Made, Carbon is Clean and Copies Readily. All styles, Carbon Leaf and Black Back. Prices as Low as You Can Get Anywhere. Get our Quotation on Your Next Order. The Seaforth 11 SEArORTH, ONTARIO, ews