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Show f- WHO'S NEWS THIS WEEK By LEMUEL F. PARTON Consolidated Features WNU Release. XJEW YORK. Lord Halifax re- L cently discovered Texas with great enthusiasm. Perhaps he had advance news of the appointment of r c r, i Major Gen-Lone Gen-Lone Star State eral Dwight Sons Make 'Texas' D.Eisenhow- j t t er as corn- Good News Tae 5 mandinggen- eral of the newly established European Euro-pean theater of operations for U.S.A. forces. General Eisenhower was born and grew up in Texas, as did Admiral Nimitz, later of the Coral sea and Midway. Other sons of the Lone Star state are bringing fame to the name Texas. Two main facets of interest light up the general's career. He was long an intimate aide and protege of General Douglas MacArthur, and in his name and fame, the accent is on youth. In army shifts, rapid advancements advance-ments and adaptations, in which it was indicated that we weren't going to have a muscle-bound army, his name frequently has appeared. General Eisenhower is 52, of the younger school of army officers who make war a science rather than an art. In this connection, he has been characterized as a tactician, as well as a strategist, this, so far as we can learn, indicating a capacity for quick improvisation, improvisa-tion, even if it breaks some classical clas-sical rule-of-thumb. One reasonable deduction from the selection of General Eisenhower for the European command is that it indicates preparations for a land attack. While he has made special studies of co-ordination of land, sea and air forces, he is a land general, gen-eral, one of the army's leading specialists spe-cialists in tank warfare. He was a lieutenant-colonel in the tank corps in the first World war and was commanding com-manding officer of the tank corps training center at Gettysburg. Graduated from West Point in 1915, he took a diploma from the army tank school and was an honor graduate gradu-ate of the command general staff school in 1926. His Distinguished Service medal came from his service in the Philippines. Philip-pines. When General MacArthur went to the islands in 1935, to build the commonwealth army, he took Colonel Eisenhower with him as his aide, and as assistant military adviser ad-viser to the government. He remained re-mained until February, 1940, to return re-turn home as chief of staff of the Third army at San Antonio, Texas. He attained the rank of brigadier general in 1941. He was assistant chief of staff of the war plans division di-vision before his recent departure for London with high-ranking officers to scout a European western front. "Alert, resourceful, dependable and adaptable" are prevailing characterizations char-acterizations by those who know him. ' THIS John Ford, the moving picture pic-ture director, who became a commander in the navy and got wounded at Midway, is an Irishman ., . named Sean Film Director Not 0. Feinne Directing in Battle from Port- That Isn't Celluloid?, let in his arm, grinding out a close-up close-up of the battle, on top of the Midway Mid-way power house. The filming was an official navy job in the midst of a lot of official shooting. Hollywood passes on the story with an unrehearsed unre-hearsed cheer for its Mr. Ford. He got his start as a property boy"and before he was 25 had made 200 Westerns. At 28, he directed "The Iron Horse." He built his name on that of the film tag of his brother, Francis Ford, serial star of the silent pictures. He is known on the picture lots as quiet and tough, biting his pipe a lot and not saying say-ing much. He is apt to throw the script away and improvise a plot. His signal achievement in the film has been to get sharp characterization with a minimum mini-mum of stereotype and hokum.' This year "How Green Was My Valley" won for him the Academy and Film Critics' Circle awards for the best directing of 1941. He won the Academy award in 1935 for "The Informer," and in 1940 for "The Grapes of Wrath." He is big and bulky, with thinning, sandy hair and heavily rimmed glasses, 47 years old. SOME years ago a famous sociologist sociolo-gist said that since we were rapidly rap-idly developing an "energy civilization," civiliza-tion," youth would have to acquire so much technical knowledge that it would be gray over the ears before it would be of any use. Many of today's stand-outs disprove this. Here's Abe Forta., undersecretary of the interior at 32. When 23, he was a member of the President's liquor control commission. In big legal forays and tournaments for the government, his record already would fill a fat biography. |