The Seaforth News, 1943-02-04, Page 6THE SEAFORTH NEWS
Churchill and
Roosevelt Meet
Think 'Casablanca Conference Start
' ef World Offensive
Prime Minister Churcbill and 'Pres-
ident 14sSevelt have completed plans
to force the unconditional surrender
of the Axis by military operations in
1943,' it was announcedto an excited!
world last week. The statement, was
issued after a ten-clny meeting be-
tween the two leader's at Casablanca,
in northwest Africa. Churchill and
Roosevelt flew from their respective
capitals to Casablanca for the meet-
ing, which was one of the best -kept
secrets of the war. With them went
practically all of the important army,
navy and air force headquarters
staffs. They found gathered at Casa-
blanca other important fighting men,
such as Generals Alexander of the
Middle East Command and Eisen-
hower of the North Africa Command.
Premier Stalin of Russia had been
invited to attend, but he was too busy
killing Germans. Gen, Chiang Kai-
Shek of China was not invited, be-
cause of the distance, but both were
kept informed on all major details,
To a large extent, the public was
left to guess, along with the AXIS, the
decisions made by the Allies. It was
assumed generally that, since every
theatre of war had been discussed in
detail, the mealnires to be taken in
each one of them had been settled
and the men selected to carry out the
required moves, Disappointment was
expressed in some quarters that no
Allied High Command had been
named, but a good many people be-
lieved one had been selected and
would be announced at 00 appropri-
ate moment. in the near future. It
aleo was assumed that arrangements
had been made for the amalgamation
of the Middle East and North African
commands now that the British Sth
Army has pursued Rommel over the
borders of Tunisia, where a British-
D.S.-French force awaits him.
The official announcement of the
meetings ended with the words:
"The President, Prime Minister and
the combined staffs having completed
their plans for the offensive cam-
paigns of 1943 have now separated in
order to put them into active and
concerted execution,"
There was some reason to believe
that the first results would be evid-
ent in the Mediterranean zone. A sec-
ond conference of Allied generals was
held at Gen. Eisenhower's headquar-
ters, and observers hinted that inva-
sion of Italy or southern France, per-
haps even Greece or Yugoslavia,
would be commenced without waiting
for complete victory over the Axis in
Tunisia.
As a sidelshow to the main confer-
ences at Casablanca, there Were
meetings between Gen. de Gaulle of
the fighting French and Gen. Girand,
High Commissioner of North Africa,
They found themselves in agreement
on the matter of fighting the Axis,
and established liaison for that pur-
pose. but they were not able to recon-
cile their opinions on French politics.
Gen. Giraud was willing to move
slowly and partially along the way of
re-establishing freedom of the indiv-
idual in North Africa, including that
of the Jews, But he maintained his
solitary right at make decisions and
so the two parted with the political
rift unhealed.
The conferences of the main lead-
ers gave a great lift to public spirit
in Britain and North America, and
pleased the Chinese to a lesser ex-
tent. The Russians remained non-
committal. They and the Allied world
already were enthusiastic about the
success of the Soviet armies in the
field. Al the way from Voronezh to
the Caucasus the Russian troops were
continuing to advance. and to de-
stroy the enemy armies.
is a "crater", never a hole, duties.
When playing house their talk is He also Leek us through a Part of
about clothes rationing, fOOd ratiOn- the building, (it world have taken
lag, and salvage Saving—it is fanny too king 10 go btrOtIgh It all), to see
to listen to them, for they are re- what the effect of such a bombing
peating conversations overheard in was.
the home.
Their play homes always have a
shelter, and when their home has
been arranged, someone is a plane
and the home is bombed. The toy
dog •may be forgotten just as the
home is about to be bombed: "Whis-
per out and get the dog," Hugh will
Say itt a low voice.
After we had experienced a bad
• raid I discovered wee Hugh next
morning putting an empty cocoa tin
into the pond, "What are you doing,
son? 1 asked him "Pm giving the
goldfish shelter, Mummy."
I arn truly amazed at the adoption
of war ideas into their picture ' of
home life. Hugh put weeds and
branches over the toy coal houses
and the dustbin outside their make-
believe homes. ''What's that for,
Hugh?" I asked—he was quite dis-
tressed that I should ask such a
question. "You can't see anything,
mums, that's camouflage." I was
struck with the fact that he should
be clever enough to think of camou-
flaging the unsightly parts of the
home,
When planes go overhead they lis-
ten f or a moment, then: "Ours,"
•conies from Hugh and the game goes
on.
"Don't worry, Hugh, even if they
were Jerries they wouldn't bomb us,
they always go farther 'up the
street," says the matter-of-fact Dor-
een.
And it was touching to watch
Hugh listen to Aunt Nellie telling us
her experiences alhen she had to be
dug out of her Anderson shelter af-
ter one raid. He spoke up quickly:
"Next time yon are bombed out,
Auntie, just you come and live with
us,"
Where I live in a London suburb
planes come and go all day long over
our homes. Hugh pointed his toy gun
up at the planes yesterday. Doreen
ran to him in great distress, and in a
trembling voice, pulling at his arm,
she said: "Don't shoot, Hugh, don't
shoot, they're ours."
The Importance Of
Air Raid Precautions
By 'Walter R. Legge
One does not have to stay in Eng-
land very long before the importance
of A.R.P. or C.P.C. work is seen, and
we Canadians became quickly con-
vinced that 'much more serious at-
tention to these precautions should
be given in Canada.
which we saw was in the form of I equal in efficiency fame to Scotian
Much of the work of the Army
demonstrations, but we had an op -i Yard and the F. 13. T. Starting; in
nortunity to study A.R.P. work in I Strad— '-
i The American Weekly...with this
av s (February 7) issue of The
actual practice over there. Detroit Sunday Times...w111 be a
We came back to our headquarters
one afternoon to learn that a short'
1 series of startling stories 110111 the
secret annals of the Philtertons. Be
time before someover the vicinity and bad caused con -1 get Sunday's Detroit Times.
raiders had come ' euro 10
siderable damage to a very large
apartment hotel. Four of our party
including myself went down to see
just what had happened,
In the event of a bombing causing
such damage, two things are staked
at onee, looking after casualtiea, and
summoning the members of the ARP,
They use what is known as the
snowball system to summon the
members,. that Is, each man has to
call four others. In this way all the:
members are very quickly notified.
Setting Up Organization
As soon as all casualties are . re-
moved, the first thing is to, set UP a
main office known as the AR,P. Lia-
ison office, which keeps in close
touch With everything that 'is going
on. In thine case, the office of the
building made an ideal location, but
where such a room is not available,
the nearest suitable place 15 taken.
The office work is broken down so
that there is a section looking after
each activity.
All this is done almost in as little
time as it takes to tell about it.
Then na intensive search of the
building is made with the double pur-
pose of ascertaining if there are any
trapped persons, and to study if the
building can be repaired and what it
will require to do this, At the same
time any bodies not previously re-
moved are taken away.
Another group is: taking rapid
steps to salvage anything that can
be saved by quick work, and this is
followed ,hy a more leisurely effort to
salvage everything possible.
Transportation must be arranged
as required.
Other groups are arranging for
food, providing money where neces-
sary, to the unfortunate victims, and
a housing department finds accom-
modation for hte bombed out people
if they have 00 other place to go.
If, as it was in this case, it is poss-
ible to repaid the building, contract-
ors and worlunqn are called to start
work without delay. Otherwise the
debris is more or less cleaned up and
replacement postponed until after
war.
All these various groups were on
the job at once and carrying out their
tasks as 11 11 were everyday routine.
On the street in front of the build-
ing was a cantees truck which bore
on its sides a sign showing that it
had been presented to the Lord
Mayor's Fund by Ford Victoria,
Southern Rhodesia.
MANHUNTING WITH THE.,
PINKERTONS
For nearly a. century the Pinkerton
Detective Agenc yhas made history
Blitz - Talk
By Rose Buckner in "London Call-
ing").
My "war babies" Hugh and Susie
were having a violent quarrel the
other day, and above the great din
I heard Hugh shout in great anger:
"I'm not speaking to you, Susie
Buckner; I've blacked -out my love
for you."
Breathlessly Hugh tugged at my
skirts yesterday as he shouted: plaoe. Although it was only a few
"Come quick, mums, quick, eceie hours after the bomb' had struck,
has taken the key from the iInvasi„, there were hundreds of men at work
at top speed.
Police and guards kept all except
workers from going close to the
building, and as we were intensely
interested in their organization,
which we wanted to study with the
idea of telling to the people of Can-
ada, we presented our credentials and
asked permission '01 enter. Here. as
everywhere else in England, we were
received with the greatest courtesy
and conducted to the chief officer of
the local A.R.P.
His organization was working
smoothly and efficiently, and he per-
sonally took us around, introducing
us to he beads of the various sec,
We Sound that the building which
had been struck was a tremeudously
large apartment house, nine stories
in height, much longer than an ordin-
ary street block, with a large pro-
jecting L at each end. There were
probably a hundred or more apart-
ments of three or four rooms each in
the building,, which was a comparat-
ively new fireproof block, largely of
cement and stone construction, it
was a building which would not
easily be damaged.
The bomb had landed directly in
front of the centre of the building
only it:few feet from the wall in the
courtyard formed by the three walls
of the building.
As there had been some casualties,
considerable damage to the building,
and as the construction was compar-
able to the heavier type of buildings
here in Canada, it was an ideal situ-
ation for us to study from the stand-
point of what would be necessary in
Canada to cope with raid damage,
Workers Soon on the Job
The first thing that struck us was
the tremendous actviity all over the
cupboard." He was referring to the
cupboard where I kept a two -weeks'
supply in case of invasion or return
of the blitz.
The other day I was rearranging
the bedrooms and going backwards
and forwards with pillows and blan-
kets, when Doreen," my little girl,
whispered to Hugh: "Looks as if we
are in for another blitz. What do you
think, Hugh?"
"Bombed", has taken the place of
"broken" in their vocabulary; a
thing is not "shared" with them, it
is "rationed"; and the "balloons" are
"sky -fish."
"Blitz it! the garne/s over," Dor-
een will say when they tire of a tions, and explaining what they were
game, Any kind of holt in the road doing and bow they carried out their
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1943
Lt. Commander 11. A. S. MacNeil, RCN, Contmanding Officer of the Canadian corvette "Dauphin" and formerly
of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, is shown here beside his ship's crest, a "mountie," gun in hand, astride a
Nazi U-boat. Lt, Commander MacNeil has already lived up to the RCMP reputation of "getting his man" the
Dauphin recently rescued the entire crew of a Norwegian shinunder difficult circumstances in mid-Atlantic. For
this action he and a fellow officer, also a "mountie", were decorated by Ring Haakon with the Royal Norwegian
War Medal for Gallantry.
SANDS OF TUNISIA HISTORIC
The topography of the Tunis -
Bizerte area, where the battle for
North Africa is being fought, is as
varied and as colorful as its ancient
past.
In the main it is a combination of
sand,' short chains of stunted moun-
tains, rock formations, and wooded
regions.
Sand, rocks an dmountains are, of
course, well suited to defensive war-
fare, and it is, in great measgre, be-
cause 01 them that the 'United Na-
tions operations against Tunis and
Bizerte have proceeded with such
painstaking care.
The big problem confronting the
attacking Allies is one of transport;
The principal rail and road lines
funnel along the cost and come to a
bottleneck, more or lessjust east of
Tunis. There are some desert tracks
and caravan trails leading to the be-
sieged section, but most of the land
approaches from Algeria lead no -
whore save to roadless wastes, desert,
mountain or gravel plains .without
water. And the gray, silent Sahara
almost reaches the mountains which
form the western flank of the Axis
defensive positions.
In this relatively small and compar-
atively arid area much of the history
of the world has been written.. lime,
time and again, the ebbing tide of Want and -For Sale Ads., 1 week 25c
the past has merged with the rising
flood of the present to form the
coursing torrents of the future.
And now. as the Allies battle the
Axis on a wide perimeter centering
on Tebourba, the classic drama is be-
ing re-enacted on a greater and niore
magnificent scale than ever before.
It was just a few miles east of
Tunis that Scipio Africanus in B. C.
146 destroyed Rome's mighty rival,
sCiaiet.hage, and strewed salt upon its
t
It was here that Julius Caesar
built a Roman colony to recapture
ranch of the ancient glory of the
Harolds' capital.
It was here that Genserin the
Vandal set up the seat of his African
BmItPlavres here that the Arabs destroy-
ed thelandiwork of Caesar and
Vandal with fine impartiality.
It was here that a Moslem city
sprang up in the early Middle Ages.
It was here that Saint Louis of
France led his last crusade.
It was here that American naval
vessels freed the Mediterranean from
the reign of pirates.
And it is here that the 'United
Nations now seek to build the bridge
over which hope and freedom will
cross into a captive Europe.
Take Time Now to
Control Rats, Mice
There's a lot of sabotage work be-
ing clone all the time by rats and
mice — Including deer mice and field
mice, These are times when every-
thing useful must be conserved --
and rats and mice are among the
most formidable destroyers of food
• and materials.,
In a few weeks these saboteurs
will be going inside for the winter.
Keep them out of the farm home and
building. Take a look around and
stop up all holes with concrete. See
that all openings are closed especial-
ly in foundations where drain and
other pipes enter. Doors to buildings
should be bound with sheet iron or
metal if possible. Ventilors and base-
ment windows should be protected
and kept in good repair. Be sure to
check over granaries and poultry
houses. Corn cribs cas be made rat
proof by enclosing them in galvan-
ized wire netting of half inch mesh,
You can get a special pamphlet on
the subject free from, Publicity and
Extension, Dominion Department of
Agriculture, Ottawa, entitled "Control
of Rats and Mice." Ask for Special
Pamphlet No. 33.
7farewn, simmiammommunnimarMWEVIR3
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The Seaforth News
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