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Show IDVENTURERS' CLUB ',EADllNES FROM THE LIVES XCjV jQPjJJUKE YOURSEIF1 -fff i.i "Playing With Dynamite" hoi; By FLOYD GIBBONS ls; Famous Headline Hunter TELLO EVERYBODY: "in A The old phrase, "Playing with dynamite" has come in- ' mean about the same thing as doing something fool-JIL fool-JIL dy That's the figurative meaning of the expression. But ierally speaking, the man who monkeys around with high .plosives is usually one of the unsung heroes of our age. r?, in France, twenty years ago, millions of men were playing th dyw nite, and T. N. T. and just about every other explosive known. Cw'X didn't call those feUows foolhardy. In those days, it was generally :; ' idered that they were doing a brave and noble thing. This Is a jry of another such lad who toyed with danger in a good cause. v Herman Beaver of Chicago wasn't Juggling explosives In and iijsj ' out some sort of firearms over in France. He was taking an ; even longer chance with the dangerous stuff. On a hot day In JaJi 1917, he was working in a munitions plant on the northern 58 v outskirts of Milwaukee, Wis., on the banks of the upper Mil-Se;5";,' Mil-Se;5";,' aukee river. ! I Grinding Salvaged Powder. ari i Over in France, millions of men were crouching in trenches, avoiding s, j.r.':j explosives that the enemy was hurling at them, but Herman Beaver e'm it5 id no way to avoid the explosive that he was dealing with. His job was 5-ir Am liable the stuff and to handle it roughly, too. He was grinding '. C-'-i lva6ed Powder Uiat came to him in chunks and long tubes that re-" T ed like spaghetti grinding it in a machine that looked a lot like an ch W i-fashioned, hand-operated coffee grinder. That powder, when it had e'v.r'.ai reduced to bits, would be used to load rifle grenades, toi" i only one way d'd that machine differ from a coffee grinder. S: Between the handle that he turned continuously and the hopper into '',.3 lich he fed the unground powder, was a steel plate fixed so as to shield e''." l My in case anything happened while he was grinding. On this day, ''P-'iile Herman ground away, his eyes wandered out the window and down -.8.?I : ( row of a dozen or more wooden buildings where the work of loading " grenades was going on. They were little better than shacks, about twenty-five by fifty feet, ;iilt about fifty feet apart, in among trees, so as to obscure the plant's J hOm ': A terrible concussion threw him backward. prove: t f'ion rom air- Even in those days they were concerned about irr.rs tz Planes' Those shacks were filled with men and women, and even boys first " :. 5-r!s all taking long chances, to supply our soldiers with ammunition. I secefs:! Blast and Deadly Flames. '.dat 'h II have""' Herman wasn't thinking about the chances. The view " from the window was pleasant. The trees outside swayed in a . ,.... 6enlle breeze. "I was at peace with the world," says Herman. V?-" And thea- : coziz ' Without warning, there was a deafening blast. Acrid choking smoke from i'11 air and fire bit into Herman's flesh. He felt the earth rock -cord wiealtl h's feet felt a terrible concussion that threw him backward, lappened so fast that only when he was on the floor did he realize had happened. The powder that he was grinding had exploded. Behind him were benches covered with pans of powder. In rapid in cession they were catching fire. Then Herman saw that his own ' V0llltS. heavily saturated with powder dust, was afire too. , If they ' ilf'i " soaked with gasoline they couldn't have burned any more furi-"J furi-"J g j 41 jg J116, fiames shot many feet above my head," he says. "I was a ttr3CtL He was stnnried for a moment, but he managed to stagger to 's feet. His whole body one mass of flame, he ran to the ooor and out of it. from J jj'toa"? ;By that time PeoP!e were pouring out of all the buildings in the group. 1 Eocd?.IMtt dashed out of the door and kept right on running. He had ljr-S' PWer of reasning. All that moved him now was a blind, 'e-ibk ipinS Panic. He wanted to run, and keep right on running until hS "J'li-s ?uEi And in his terror he was headed for another building a build-H,r.de.that build-H,r.de.that was filled with powder, d dWHf: y.ps', "Lie Down and Roll." If s -"cn"e had run into that building, this story might never have been ?5ut suddenly, through his panic, he heard a voice. Out of all the HnSir Md yelS f that mob of screaming humanity that was watching "fifu ' 0131 one voice, and that alone, penetrated his consciousness. Hj!'Jt "as shrieking. "Lie down and roll!" vlect w Herman remembered. That was what he should be doing. LStl''n aSthe only wav to save himself. He dropped to the ground and fb'V g' pain was unbearable, as burned, smarting flesh ftf' h"1 COntact with the hard earth. He rolled over once twice and ;r,uur P:'triJSl0pped- 11 was aU he could stand. A workman ran over kiW:l ed t0 beat out the flames. 1 J rPrn aUght fire and he stopped to tear it off. Then the superin- 'nded, ran UP- He ordered the crowd back, and he himself began roU-Je roU-Je ' , Tu11 Ver and over- He burned his hands severely, but he stuck oi8&t:sd a flames ware out, Herman's clothing what was left of it b-if th" Smouldered like one large, Uve coal. They rushed him into "iv JeuShaeks' sat him down on a box, and began tearing the charred tber '0& off his body 'ni'p Shack was Med with powder," Herman says, "but in wcitement they never thought of that. ,fan''j(lre as Powder in the very box I was sitting on. The Lord only ftSre,. Whole place didn't blow UP- 1 know 1 don,t 1 have EST? rerrii rt03"' ne 0n my right hiP and one on front cf my left leg' -no name every once in a while of what a close call I had." t rj$cussdy 6Ver know how that exPlosion started, but Herman thinks 10n caP might have found its way into the powder he was grind-35 grind-35 f "as wrking with the lid of the grinder open," he says. "If it had S u ened dwn when the explosion occurred, the whole machine shattered to bits and I don't believe I'd be here to tell the Copyright. WNU Service. |