Sunday Post - 17.10.1943, Side 3

Farmboy
Comes Home
When Cliff Wherley was 14,
he saw a movie about Sergeant
York. That was in March 1942.
He thought ft over until 4 a.
m., then slipped out of his
Elwood, Ill. home, caught a bus
for Peoria, enlisted. Big for his
age (“the best hay baler in the
country”), Farmboy Wherley
looked 18 to the U. S. Army.
Last week, not yet 17, Staff
Sergeant Clifford R. Wherley,
his chest bright with medal and
campaign ribbons, leaned back
in War Secretary Stimson’s
office chair, sitting before
Robert Todd Lincoln’s old desk,
and received the press. Still
under age, Hero Wherley was
being discharged from the Air
Forces. But before his uniform
and stripes are put away, Cliff
will make a nationwide morale
four. The story he has to tell is
a boy’s dream in Technicolor.
The Army believs it will spur a
landslide of 17-year-old enlist-
ments. Clift Wherley:
Won the African ribbon, with
Star for action over Italian is-
lands:; the American Theater
ribbon; the Army Good Con-
duct ribbon; the Air Medal with
three Oak Leaf Clusters.
Trained in England; fought
at Kasserine Pass; helped bomb
Pantelleria.
Can say, without boasting:
“While I was on those three
bombing raids with Major
General Jimmy Doolittle ... . ”
or “Officially. I have just one
Messerschmitt to my credit, but
there were really about 15
more ... . ”
Manned the gun turrets of
two Martin Marauders, called
the “Thunder,” and the
“Coughin’ Coffin.”
Lived on Ration C; slept on
straw in Telegma; shot at Nazis
over La Hencha bridge.
Cliff’s mother kept his age
a secret as long as she could:
for 15 months. Then she asked
the Army to send Cliff home.
But Cliff’s mother will not try
to keep him down on the Elm-
wood farm, now that he has
seen Oran. Until he is old
enought to start all over again
in the Army, ex-Airman Wher-
ry has picked his job: inspector
of Marauders in Glenn Martin’s
Omaha plant.
Anglfsie i Rally Post!
b N 1) A V P US

A Duce with
The Duce who recently re-
sumed “power” was a very
; different Duce from the one
I who had been so ignominiously
| ousted on July 25. For one
: thing, he did not appear in
| person. His voice was not heard
\ over the radio. The Germans
themselves admitted that he
was kept secret. It was not
■ Rome, nor Milan, where anti-
I Fascists were still bitterly
l resisting; perhaps he was in
| Cremona, maybe in Germany.
! His five pronouncements,
’ separately issued as “Order
\ Sheets of the Fascist Regime”
Nos. 1 to 5, were broadcast over
the radio system of the National
Fascist Government by an im-
personal announcer. They con-
tained a strange mixture of the
old and the new.
Addressed only to the memb-
ers of the Fascist Party, and
dated according to the Fascist
era, they announced the crea-
tion of what was in effect a new
Party with a new name: the
Republican Fascist Party; pro-
claimed the abolition of the
Monarchy, and thundered re-
venge against those who had
been loyal to the King and
Badoglio.
King Victor Emmanuel they
called “Mr. Savoia.”
All this did not prevent the
Germans from taking quite a
different line in their own
propaganda. They, heaped
' abuse on Italy generally and
| without discrimination. The
j Italian had been traitors and
cowards; the Italian generals
and the Italian soldiers were
responsible for every disaster,
including Stalingrad. Italian
territories were promised to
: Balkan vassals as a punishment
for the disoyal Italian ally. The
discrepancy between the Musso
lini statement and the Nazi
blurbs were too obvious to
leave room for doubt as to their
purpose: the Germans had lost
hope of ever regaining Italian
support; they were now merely
out to create confusion in Italy.
Behind the veil which cover-
ed the north and centre of the
country, certain facts began to
emerge. Only a few of the main
centres and the most important
railway lines were held by Ger-
man troops. The p rovinces of
Tuscany, Marches, Abruzzi and
the Lazio province surrounding
Rome were either loyal to Bad-
a Difference
oglio or were at least No-Man’s-
Land.
Apparently there were no
Germans in Venice. Fighting
with pro-Allied Italian troops
was in progress in the Alps,
near Milan, in the extreme
north, and on the French
frontier, where the Germans
claimed to have captured the
Mont Cenis tunnel “after heavy
fighting.”
In Rome Victor Emmanuel’s
son in law General Calvi di
Bergolo, “Cammander of the
Open City,” ordered the surr-
ender of all arms by the citiz-
ens, and appoointed a number
of Civil Servants to take charge
of the Ministries, apparently in
Badoglio’s name.
German troops were planted
in St. Peter’s Square to prevent
“Communists” (meaning anti-
Fascist refugees) from reaching
sanctuary in the Vatican. The
Pope refused to see Fieldmar-
shal Albert Kesselring on the
ground that Rome was an open
city and the presence of Ger-
man troops a violation of inter-
national law.
News Shorts
SEATTLE:
— An all-climate garment
for soldiers, different from any
uniform now worn by Amer-
ican servicemen is being sought,
by the war Department, Major
General Edmund B. Gregory,
Quartermaster General, stated.
“What we have in mind,” Gen-
eral Gregory said, “is a cotton
fabric that is both wind resist-
ant and water repellant, to be
used as an outer garment for
all soldiers in all attitudes. The
number and character of layers
that the soldier will wear und-
erneath will be determined by
local weather conditions.”
Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, the
army quartermaster depot ann-
ounced the adoption of a new
field jacket for soldiers. It is 3
inches longer than the old one
and will have no zippers. The
lining will be of poplin instead
of the wool used in the present
garment.
» * *
WASHINGTON: — The Lend
Lease Administration reported
6 billion 579 million 4 hundred
thousand tons of food were
shipped to fighting fronts in the
first 8 months of this year. This
tonnage is approximately nine
persent of. the- nation’s food
supply.
* • •
BUFFALO: — On the final
day of its convention, the CIO
United Automobile Workers
reaffirmed its “no strike”
pledge, but urged the junking
of the little steel formula. The
anti-strike resolution stipulated
that in plants where manage-
ment fails to act in good faith,
a UAW international executive
board shall demand govern-
ment operation of the plants.
» * »
WASHINGTON: — July was
the first month in several years
to show a decrease in civilians
on the government payroll. The
listshrank by 29 thousand 2
hundred and 23 names, leaving
3 million 2 hundred 23 thous-
and 3 hundred and 75 on the
government roster.
* * *
WASHINGTON: — Ameri-
can were warned to expect a
10 or 15 percent cut in their
meat rations next year. The
War Food Administration fore-
cast a sharp reduction in the
number of livestock during
1944, and said the government’s
requirements would increase by
25 percent.
* * •
PITTSBURG: — The pro-
ductive capacity of the United
States steel industry has risen
to 90 mill, thousand tons a year.
This is enough to supply each
day the steel tonnage required
for two giant battleships. The
U. S. steel output now exceeds
that of all the rest of the world.
* * *
Luxury cars, designed for
lounges and cocktail bars, are
being converted into air con-
ditioned hospital trains for
wounded army men. The Pull-
man Company of Chicago ann-
ounced the completion of 78
cars and work on ten more for
a railroad hospital fleet.
» * *
A new type of low-cost
miniature “lighthouse”, that
broadcasts ultra-violet health
rays to keep U. S. war workers
in fit condition has been deve-
loped and installed in an east-
ern plant. Standing in a circle
five feet from the “lighthouse”,
15 men and women can simul-
taneously receive ultra-violet
applications within a few min-
utes.