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Show Who's News This Week By Delos Wheeler Lovelace Consolidated Features. WNU Release. MEW YORK. In November, 1917, when the United States had been in World War I for seveD months, the navy sent to its Brook-lyn Brook-lyn yard an bpruance Goes to Annapolis Sea in This War; graduate 11 An Admiral Now aTS ut ol the academy and just turned 30. He'd had a postgraduate post-graduate course in electrical engineering engi-neering and he'd helped build the battleship Pennsylvania before going go-ing to sea in her. The powers that be figured that he'd make a top-notch top-notch electrical superintendent. ' The only person displeased about the whole thing was Raymond Amos Spruance himself. In fact, the only thing that delighted him was that he managed to wangle a couple of months afloat in 1918. This time it has turned out the way he likes it, and President Roosevelt recommends that this same officer, now 57 and a vice admiral, be promoted to admiral for his success as commander of the mighty assault force that just trounced the Japs in the Marshall islands. The admiral's a man who shuns the limelight, but talk to navy men and they'll tell you he's tops as a tactician. Be plans his moves meticulously, and carries them out with skill and daring. He and Vice Admiral Ad-miral Fletcher drove the Japs back at Midway in 1942, and Spruance himself had charge of the conquest of the Gilberts. He packs a tremendous amount of energy in his medium build, and he drives himself and the men with him hard when the heat is on. His rugged rug-ged face had been weathered by many a salt breeze. His blue, flinty eyes are those of a born commander. The Spruances are a family of four. His wife and daughter live out on the Pacific coast and his son, true to the navy tradition, is an officer on a submarine. QUITE likely Mrs. George C. Marshall is doing a little extra listening these days. The thoughtful chief of staff of the Army of the General Has Silent states taUu Audience in Mrs. outhisprob- Geo. C. Marshall lems t0 his wife as to no one else. And with the going a trifle heavy in Italy he may be talking talk-ing more than usual. It is to be noted that the general gen-eral talks his problems to, and not with, Mrs. Marshall. Unlike some Washington wives she pretends pre-tends to no expert knowledge in her husband's field, even the edges of it. Her role is that of audience while the sometimes harassed general thinks out loud. For this role she is nicely fitted. She used to be a Shakesperian actress and early learned to show a lively, but silent interest while Mansfield and others reeled off the long, magnificent speeches of the Bard. For both the Marshalls this is their second marriage. He met her on a boat when she was a Baltimore lawyer's widow, met her again on land, decided he had done enough reconnaissance and found she- felt the same way. A slim wife, hardly up to her husband's shoulder, with modish gray hair, she is finely proportioned propor-tioned for the roles of Portia, Juliet and Rosalind. These were among her favorites. Ophelia was one of her favorites, too, but that can hardly be of any present help. "EN. Alexander A. Vandegrift, commandant of the marine corps, marks the first birthday of the women's reserve with an all en- n i d l cx compassing Col. Ruth Streeter ..weI1 done ,. And the Marines and a smile Have No Regrets "Shts UP the keen blue eyes of Col. Ruth Cheney Streeter. Those are the very words she has been waiting 12 months to hear. She knew that at the start the leathernecks, leather-necks, almost to a man, 'were from Missouri as far as her organization was concerned. Now the stamp of approval is as emphatic as the skepticism skep-ticism was real, and the director of the reserve is justly proud. A year ago if this action-loving wife of a lawyer could have had her way, she'd have been ferrying ferry-ing planes overseas. She had learned to fly at 45 and held a civilian pilot's license, and it seemed pretty silly to her that Washington thought 47 too old for the Ferry Command. Her year in the marines has erased that disappointment. She admits she was startled when the marines commissioned her a major in January of 1943 and set her to bossing the sister group to I the WAVES. She had found time from running her home in Morris-town, Morris-town, N. J., and bringing up her four children to participate in welfare wel-fare and defense work, but this was something else again. She received her second promotion in a year last January and now she far outranks her three sons in service, two in the navy and one in the army. Only her husband and her daughter are not in uniform. Colonel Streeter spent her girlhood in Peterboro, N. H., and Boston. New England still marks her quick, clipped speech. Neither Bryn Mawr nor her years west of the Hudson have changed that. |