The White Falcon - 20.02.1943, Síða 4

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THE WHITE FALCON
OUR FORCES - ALWAYS ALERT
Published by and for the American Forces, under the super-
vision of G-2 Section. Managing Editor, T/3G. Gene Graff; Asso-
ciate Editor, T/5G. Joseph T. Koren; News Editor, T/5G. George
Bartholomaeus; Art Editor, T/4G. Harrison Standley; Wire Edi-
tor, Pvt. Orlando Aguero; Circulation Manager, Pfc. Anthony J.
Schulte. All photographs are by the U.S. Army Signal Corps un-
less otherwise credited.
This paper has been passed by Censor and may be mailed
home for one cent.
Buy Wisely
When 1 lie new restaurant-PX opened last week in the
No. 1 Rcc Center, its facilities were extended to the entire
Command, including auxiliaryunils and the British. The
food is a welcome flashback to days in the Slates when
a jaunt to a restaurant for a snack \yas taken as daily
routine. And the attractively displayed post exchange
shelves contain a “drainless” supply of merchandise to
satisfy even the most meticulous Serviceman.
Unfortunately, there is a war being fought these days,
and shipping space is at a premium because Uncle Sam
is conducting an all-out global duel with tyrannts who
must be punished severely and conclusively. Unnecessary
packages from home were the first to be removed from
the “must” list on overburdened convoys, and it’s highly
possible that other non-essential items soon may he plac-
en on the taboo list. That doesn’t mean that the situation
even begins to approach a critical stage, because it doesn’t.
But it does-indicate that discretion must be exerted to
conserve “luxury” articles now available.
Even a “drainless” supply of toilet articles, etc., will
become depleted if men who are offered the same merch-
andise at their unit PX’s deem it necessary to make their j
~ > I
purchase at the Rec Center. Of course, it's a simplified
process to /make all purchases at one time in the new
building, but it should he remembered by all that there
are soldiers who are unable to procure the same articles
at other places. The new, convenient PX location is prim-
arily for their benefit, although the restaurant is for]
everybody, and they are the persons who are entitled
to utilize its stock.
7A& JnquihinQ.
Qapoxteh
(Reading tastes interested The
Inquiring' Reporter this week, so
he asked four soldiers what their
favorites are. Here are the an-
swers:)
Pvt. Joseph Sgro, 33, Air Corps,
ponders over
French and Span-
ish books when
jff-duty because
he hopes “to
some day be an
a m b a s sad or.”
Joe, who studies
also because he
wants to remain
true to his “Maria,” hails from
Akron, O.
Nuts and bolts interest avia-
tion-minded Pfc.
Robert E. Kil-
derry, 25-year-
old Infantryman
from Newark, N.
.1., so he studies
books and mag-
azines about
machinery. Bob
was a tool util-
iiies clerk for the Chrysler Corp.
bcfoie stepping into the Army.
“Breezy magazines with plenty
of pictures' and
jokes are my
choice,” asserted
Pfc. Sven T.
Swanson, 2(5, of
the Coast Artil-
lery. “That’s why
I always corner
every copy of
Look, Pic, Col-
lege Humor and Esquire I can
find,” the native of Lancaster,
Minn., added.
Historical books are favbred
by S/Sgt. Willi-
am J. Rohan of
Racine, Wis. The
2(i-year-old Coast
Artilleryman de-
clared: “I’ve just
finished ‘Young
Henry of Navar-
re.’ It’s a splen-
did book, and I
wish I had more time to read.”
Bill was a foundry worker as a
civilian.
CHAPLAIN’S CHALLENGE
“Thou hypocrite, first
cast the beam out of
thine own eye; and then
shalt thou see clearly to
cast the mote out of (hy
brother’s eye.
Matthew 7:5.
Some men are creatures of
strange and malicious moods.
They turn malignant when
they dislike. It becomes their
vicious practice to “back-
bite.” This policy — to cens-
ure and speak evil of — is at
once petty and enormous.
Petty, in that the “backbiter”
attacks stealthily and not face
to face. Enormous, because
the nasty, uncomplimentary
speech influences listeners.
Like the hypocrite, they for-
get to “first cast the mote out
of thine own eye.”
They Say.
HANSON BALDWIN.—There’s
no doubt that the elevation of
U-boat expert Admiral Doenitz
to supreme command of the Ger-
man navy and the constantly
increasing number of German
U-boats mean that we must face
this year the supreme Nazi ef-
fort to cut our supply lines to
our global fronts. This effort
has already had such success
that there’s not much doubt that
the war has been lengthened
and the strength of our blows
against the enemy reduced.
But ship sinkings, though ex-
remely serious, must be viewed
in their proper perspective. It
is probable that the total amount,
of shipping available to the Un-
ited Nations is unreduced and
probably somewhat increased
over last year and the rale of
increase is expected to mount
this year when over twice as
much merchant tonnage is sche-
duled to be completed.
In war against U-boats, fast
ships are a major asset. Experi-
ence of two wars shows, that
speedy cargo ships are relative-
ly immune from submarine at-
tack—even if sent across the
ocean unescorted. But the maj-
ority of the vessels in the world’s
merchant fleet are slow—eight
to ten knots—and because of
construction, design and pro-
duction problems that ships of
relatively high speeds offer,
such ships can’t be built quickly
enough in sufficient numbers to
meet our demands. While we’ll
be able to gradually effect im-
provements in speed, our success
in building a “bridge of ships”
to Europe and Asia will stand
or fall chiefly on Liberty ships.
MAJOR GEORGE FIELDING
ELIOT.—Today the United Na-
tions are concentrating their
• • •
main effort against Germany.
The Russians, for example, are
putting everything into their
western front leaving only sec-
urity forces to watch Japan.
The Japanese have not been able
to make trouble for the Soviets
in the Far East because their air
force and airplane production
has only been sufficient to deal
with the troubles we are mak-
ing for them in the southwest
Pacific.
Thus, our operations in the
southwekt Pacific have served
the purposes properly assigned
a detachment; they’ve contained
a much more powerful total en-
emy force, they’ve kept the Jap-
anese immobilized on the cont-
inental Asiatic front and the
Japanese cannot achieve air sup-
eriority in Siberia, Burma or ev-
en China while the whole re-
placement capacity of their air-
craft industry is required to
make up their heavy losses in
the southwest Pacific.
We’ve suffered casualties in
men, but we’ve kept 80 odd Jap-
anese divisions twiddling their
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thumbs from Manchuria to Bur-
ma-for lack of air support. We’ve
suffered casualties in ships, but
we’ve put anywhere from a
fourth to a third of the Jap mer-
chant fleet out of action. As for
naval losses, the mere fact that
today we are on the offensive
against a fleet which was sup-
erior in the Pacific theater after
Pearl Harbor speaks for itself.
In other words, when we
think of the Russian victories
now rolling up so impressive a
score against Germany we must
realize in part that these vic-
tories were made possible by the
fact that the Russians have not
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