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HomeMy WebLinkAboutZurich Herald, 1942-02-12, Page 2VOICE PRESS GRANDMA KNEW TMT One of the jokes that killed vaudeville was the one about hew married men don't really live longer than single men—it just zeeroa longer. It wasn't a very good joke at hest, and zaow comes the awful re- velation that it wasn't even true. A large life -insurance firm has just •completed a study which de- monstrates that married men ac- tually do live longer. They are also less likely to commit suicide, drink themseles to death, and get themselves killed in accidents. The statisticians carne to the sonclusion that the fevorable bal- ance toward longevite came from living "a normal family life;" which anybody could have told them anyway. Little by little seience is creep- ing up on common folk. knowl- edge, and one of these days we'll have chapter and book for every one of those Iittle things grand- ma knew, so well without a statis- tic to guide her. —Kingston Whig -Standard DIVE IDEA COPIED Dive bombing is a new science In the present war, but duck hawks and other species cif birds use this dive method for destroy- ing their prey. According to a United States Department of Agriculture bulletin, duck hawks are the fastest flying birds re- ported. "One of these hawks," says the bulletin, "diving on its victim flew 165 to 180 miles an hoer when timed with a stop watch. Diving at a flock of ducks, at a velocity of nearly 175 miles an hour, an aviator reports that a hawk, presumably a duck hawk, passed him as though the plane were standing still and struck one of the ducks." Man has copied the dive idea but has surpassed even the duck hawk in speed, the velocity of his descent being al- most three times as fast. Brockville Recorder and Times SO HITLER THINKS Some 40 buildings owned by Norwegians who returned to Eng- land with raiding British com- ao*ndos have been burned by the Nazis, all their other property has been seized and 100 of their reale relatives have been sent to Ger- man erman concentration camps. Other- wise Hitler has everything under sontrol, almost. Windsor Star —o— KEY AS SALVAGE Grim humor often appears in Z`agland. Not long ago a man sent a key to the Salvage office et a British railway company with the message "The house belong - g to this key has been bombed. Please accept for salvage." —Chatham News —0— HELPFUL! Scientists say that a rubber substance may be extracted from dandelions. Well, we know sev- eral lawns that would provide plenty of raw material any Epang. —Stratford Beacon -Herald --o— OUT OF ORDER Such past sayings as "nothing down and the rest when you catch me," are out of order now with the new buying restrictions. —St. Thomas Times -Journal --e-- REMEMBER EIRE It isn't quite a world war yet. Don't think there are no neutral countries left. Remember, there's always Eire. —Windsor Star Windowless Plant Permits of Blackout Completely windowless, yet containing more glass than any other such structure, a building that is as .Iong as 12 New York City blocks (its area is 4,000 by 820 feet) and as high as a five - storey building, has been dedi- cated by the United States Army at Port Worth, Texas, relates The Toronto Telegram. It is for use in the construction of $250,000 bombing planes; it bas cost $25,000,000; it has a huge assembly room without a ;single pillar or obstruction, It is without windows so as to permit of complete blackout, and to pro- mote efficient air conditioning. The glass that is used is in the loran ofspun glass wool, used in the steel walls (27,500 tons of structural steel were required in the building), and which will not only provide insulation but absorb from 65 to 75 percent of the fac- tory noises. It has been estimated that the four -inch glass -stuffed steel ,.walls of the assembly plant have the same heat and cold in- sulating properties of an ordinary brick wall thirty inches thick. The plant will employ 16,000 men. Great Britain expects to obtain between 4,500,000,000 and 5,000,- 000,000 pounds of milk from the United Statos•in the corning year. SHIM HAD A. HISTORIC ANCESTOR Al set for her Feb. 16th launching against America's Axis foes Is the $80,000,000, 85,000 -ton super -dreadnaught Alabama, pictured above on the ways at Portsmouth, Va.. She's the fourth naval vessel to bear the name, but one of the most picturesque of the Alabamas never flew the Stars and Stripes. She was the famous Confederate cruiser that ravaged Union shipping until sunk off Cherbourg, France, in the historic battle with the U.S.S. Kearsarge. WINTER CONVOY By .Lieut. E. H. Bartlett, R.C.N.V.R. The fleet was at sea. Behind us were the days when Naval Control Service officers had sent out coded signals, moving aur ships from berth to berth and port to port until the moment arrived when the ships were assembled, ready for their sailing into the war areas. Behind us, too, was the convoy conference, in which our commodores and our captains had discussed their final strategies in readiness to face the enemy. Now the fleet was at sea, >;`rom the grey shore line we had left behind, to the far horizon to which we were steaming, ships. ploughed their solemn way through the waves. We were proceeding in "line ahead," for this was & mammoth argosy, numbering its whips in scores and waiting until well clear of shore before forming Cruising disposition for the night. "Line ahead" and. "cruising dis- goeition" — good naval terms those, but it was not a battle fleet to which they were being applied. Our fleet was one of merchant ships, peace time carriers of cargo who to -day were getting. out to run the gauntlet of torpedoes .and shells and bombs from enemy raiders of sea and sky. So, since the first days of war, merchant ship convoys have been leaving Canadian ports. In their deep -laden hulls the ships have carried the food supplies, the sin- ews of war, the vital necessities,. across the ocean to the Island Fortress which is Britain. Secretly, for in secrecy lies safe- ty, thousands of ships bearing millions of tons of cargo have left Canada, Our convoy was typical. Purposeful Precision One night the port was filled with merchant ships, riding lazily to their anchors in the peace of a sheltered harbour. The next day saw a harbour empty. Clanking windlasses had raised the anchors, churning propellers were driving the fleet on its way across the sea. From the bridge of one of the fleet's Royal Canadian Navy's war- ship escorts I had seen the sailing of the fleet -- and had marvelled at the purposeful precision with which it had 'been accomplished. In the grey of an Atlantic morn- ing we started to slip through the opened submarine gates whish guarded the port. Signal peasants, whipping in a growing wind which gave promise of a winter storm in the making, identified each vessel quickly for the scurrying launches which, bearing the Naval Control''a Service Officer and his staff, were seeing that the sailing schedule was being maintained, 'We sail at 9.30 in the morn- ing" had been the final orders delivered the night before. At 9.30 in the morning, to the minute, the commodore's ship had started moving seaward, in pride of place as first of the ships form - LIFE'S LIKE THAT By Fred Neher "1 think I'm qualified. . I've been married twenty years an' my wife still thinks I have a sick friend." Ing "line ahead.» "We will pass through the i aLou at so•rnany minute intervals" they night -before orders bad continued tarid the intervals were marvel lowly small,) At the exact stated interval after tb'e commodore's ship had shown her steern to the men on duty in the gateships, the s000nd ship of bis fleet was thrusting bar bow in e;: wake, These were not Was of war, earn you, practised in fleet man - .re; :es and evolutions. These . eortly cargo carriers, their anlen n hulls thrusting sullenly te. nani the water which their sis- t::s in the fighting service knifed Seven or keen, however, they t their station and the fleet pet to sea on schedule. Pattern of Protection Ahead of it, sturdy minesweepers hail assured a channel free of iie danger from the floating deaths which the enemy lets loose ;< t.. the waters. Around them, Cc -median naval escort craft circled in :.eastlers, vigilant guard against settearine attack. Overhead, air- ceaft formed their share of the protecting screen which is given a fleet at sea. Our sea -most ships were rising and falling to the Atlantic swell bong before the harbour behind us was emptied of our sisters. Up and down the long line of merchant ships the escort vessels steamed in steady patrol, weaving their ceaseless pattern of protection which would not be relaxed until the convoy was safely in the var- ious harbours to which it was bound. Slowly, so slowly as to be al- most imperceptible, the line of ships commenced to alter form- ation. From the commodore's ship, at the head of the line, signal flags had whipped out, Veteran of many crossings, wise in the ways of a fleet at sea, the commodore was ordering his oharges into shorter, more easily guarded col- umns. His vice and rear com- modores, working to plans well prepared beforehand, were taking over their own divisions of mer- chantmen, manoeuvering them as skillfully and as steadily as, in other days (when they wore their flags in ships of the fighting force) they had manoeuvred ships of war. The fleet came into station, The one long column split into several shorter ones and the size of the fleet 'became apparent. To port and starboard, ahead and astern, were ships' steadily steaming on- ward. These 'were the ships that Hitler boasted he was going to sweep from the seas! And these ((( were from but one port! Supplies Go Through We ploughed on through seas growing steadily higher, and into a wind which brought biting cold with it. On our bridge, and in the dizzyingly swaying crow's nest on our mast, keen -eyed seamen kept constant watch over the waters. On the bridges of the ships of our fleet, their fellows were sharing the vigil. At ear -phones in the ships of war highly trained opera- tors were listening incessantly for the warnings their submarine de- tectors might bring. The fleet was at sea .. , a fleet in which merchantmen as well as ships of war maintained battle stations. The cold became more apparent with the coming of night. In the gathering dusk we lost sight of the farther ships , . . of the high - funnelled Greek and the newly. painted Norwegian; of the slab - sided tanker with her tattered Red Ensign and the useful looking Dutchman whose capta,n was so proud that he had saved his ship from the Germans so that he could carry on his country's war at s,ea. They are international fleets sail--+ ing under the protection of, the White Ensign these days, with all the flags of all the Free peoples represented among them. Steadily the darkness blotted out the ships. There were no lights to give us away to the enemy, and keeping station called for anxious watch and constant alertness. The experience gained in long months of war and hundreds of such night watches now stood in good stead. There was no slowing of the fleet. Daylight broke on a tumbling, white -crested sea — with the ships plunging steadily onward through it. The fleet was at sea, and the supplies far the Front Line were going through, R.EG'LAR FELLERS—Gets His Maxi PINHEADS RUNNIM' A COLLECTION SYSTEM./ WATCH ME HAVE c SOME FUN WITH IM \+ 6HCr-FIST RILEY OWES ME A DIME./IF YOU CAN COLLECT IT FROM HIM YOU CAN KEEP NNE CENTS Fc'n YOURSELF/ NO MORE PILES AND POWDUUS FON US,f.WE'VE DISCOVERED ALL-BRiNI ,`,aye Mrs. William Brady, Pardee, "Better Way" to correct the cause ,Ontario: "We have no more use for of constipation due to lack of the harsh cathartics! When we found right kind of "bulk" in your diet. out about ALL -BRAN we knew But remember, ALL -BRAN doesn't we'd never go back to pills or pow- work like cathartics. It takes time. dere any more. KELLOGG'S ALL- Get ALL -BRAN at your grocer's, BRAN is certainly the `Better in two convenient size packages, or ay, )7 ask for the individual serving pack - Why don't you buy KELLOGG'S age at restaurants. Made by ALL -BRAN? Try ALL -BRAN'S Kellogg's in London, Canada. FIs f LJ .tiz L 111' MAN MAtikiCIEr P JNT1NNS '!/• A Weekly Column About This, and That in The Canadian Arsny It's rather a strange thing that a country whose citizens are able and willing to spend 60 cents of every dollar they receive on the war effort, should know so little about their Army—the biggest sin- gle item in their 60 cents worth. That sounds like a sweeping assertion, It is a sweeping asser- tion, and perhaps, like most gen- eralizations, slightly unfair. It is occasioned by a couple of news- paper clippings which show that Canadian newspapermen are woe- fully ignorant of Army terms. (They should read this column), Perhaps it is elevating the fourth estate too highly to judge a coun- try by its newspapermen, so an apology may be in order. The whole thing grows out of two abbreviations — "K.P." and "A. W. O. L." Both these terms are used a little too frequently in Can- adian newspaper columns to please old soldiers—this old soldier any- way, for neither of them apeily to the soldiers of the King. "K.P." is the abbreviation for a term current in the United Army —"Kitchen Police"—it does not mean sentries placed on guard duty to protect currants and other delicacies from predatory fingers —it just means men who have been detailed to assist in the non-tech- nical work in the kitchen. A tour of duty on "Kitchen Police" is sometimes ordered as a mild. punishment. But the fact that a man is detailed for a job in the kitchen does not always mean that he has transgressed any Army regulations, In the Individual Citizen's Army of Canada, work in the kitchen is one of the regular "fatigues" for which all private soldiers are liable to be detailed in the ordinary course of events and, since a kit - elan in your Army is invariably known as a "cook -house," this duty should properly be referred to by. newspaper writers and others as "cook -house fatigue." (As one who had his share of cook -house fatigue a quarter of it Century ago, it is probably unfair of me to point out—lest some Cone manding Officer chance to look at this—that nine times out of ten it is a very welcome duty. There are such things as extra pieces of pie, apples that can be snitched, and other delicacies unofficially available to the amateur cook- house stair, which makes the whole proceeding rather useless as a punishment, even of the mildest variety.) The other abbreviation I com- plain of in Canadian papers Is "A,W.O.L.," again a U.S, Army. terns, meaning "absent without of- ficial leave." If the United States Army cares to indulge in such re- dundancy it is all right with me, but as an ex -soldier of an Army in which leave is referred to pure- ly and simply as "leave," I feel that Can newspapermen should stick to the Army abbrevi- ation of "A.W.L.," which means obviously "absent without leave." If a man has leave* in your Army it has been granted by higher au- thority. Obviously then it does not need to be called "official leave," there being no such thing as an unofficial variety. All the foregoing may seem to be trivial. Actually it isn't. The Individual Citizen's Army is not only the greatest investment ever ' made by the Canadian taxpayer, it is an investment which spells to him or her the difference between freedom and oppression, between life and death. So like good in- vestors, it behooves uS to know everything we can about the enter- prise in which we should all be investing our money, our work, our brains and everything that we have. "The Man Who Relaxes • Is Helping the Axis" Ambrose Harle, Galena, I11,, a munitions handler at the Army ordnance proving grounds, Sa- vanna, I11., was commended by the War Department for a slogan he submitted for use in manufactur- ing plants—"The man who re - lake.: is helping the Axis." The Department said the slogan would be used in plants working on Army orders. frst th line YOU LAVE IT TO US, Mit. DUgAN/ WHAT WE GO AFTER WE GET •THATS MY MOTTO By GENE-BYRNES Ft O� Ir noN`r S1EE efl •,,aye S. 1'4 Cif!