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Show THE PROGRESSIVE OPINION This Card Is an Ace U. S. navy task forces, spearhead-ed by modern, hard-hittin- g aircraft carriers, are ranging the Pacific, blasting Japanese island fortifica-tions from Wake to Rabaul and de-stroying German submarine activity in the Atlantic. At this writing we have 40 such carriers. Tops among them is the U. S. S. Card which, with her planes and escort vessels, has destroyed more submarines than anyot unit in naval history. One of the Card's escorts was the over-age destroyer Boris which sank after disposing of two Nazi submarines in. a stormy sea. j v f " " "i j . Sn$V l v ? ' X 1 ' , ' "v 1 i 1 ' "V, ;""""" Left: Signal officer at stern of carrier orders pilot of an in-coming plane to cut throttle. "Talker" in foreground relays m orders from the captain. : J. ,Wmmmmmmmmmmmmm "" ' ' " , " This is what the pilot sees as he turns for a landing on the deck of the Card. At a higher level the flight deck of a carrier appears as the side of a match box. l ...... ,Y A k t f j' ,i' 3' n 7s I ' v , - v 5 I s l VJ i t i - 1 - ft , ! : : V ; Victory .i h 'A Parade- - j Top: Torpedo planes and h.-- dive bombers on' the flight deck I , jL--- -' of an aircraft carrier. Bottom: f r From the bridge of his carrier J this captain conducts the many activities which are necessary to operate the complex mechanism of his craft. TheCard, which was converted from a merchant hull, is an escort carrier of the type known as "baby flat top." Car-riers are enabling our forces to control the sky from the moment they move into a new area. ' " J - f J ' . t - I , ,$ ' ' ' I Si 1 ' 1 j kit' 1 , 1 r ' ' ' h I '', 1 , ,' 4 ' - ' - 1 a i '' ' , - i ' ' t " , " "! , rAi Mr. : f r 1 Left: Dive bombers roar into ' '4 I - I Ja take-off- . Right: Another 4 -J "talker" relays commands. vj ' ' .: - - . ' J ' ' ' i , - s ' Another take-of- f is under way. This navy Helical is going to help ruin a Jap Pacific base. Back from a successful mis-sion, I w this dive bomber gracefully -- v, , j poops down to the carrier. Z" jr- - " V ' fin See Here, R3Jj jjtM Private Hargrove! kfC S ty Marion Hargrove .c?.. Vf-- 1 THE STORY SO FAR: Private Marion Hargrove, former newspaper feature edi-tor, has been inducted into the army and is nearing his completion of basic training at Fort Bragg, N. C. He has been classified tfs cook and in addition his failure to master some of the funda-mentals of army training have resulted in considerable extra KP duty for him. He has also learned the finer points of "goldbricking" and "shooting the breeze." Hargrove has become editor of a section of the camp paper and these duties have kept him away from a lecture series. As we pick up the story, his sergeant is assigning him once more to KP for this infraction. Hargrove is trying to explain. He speaks: slashing away at my enjoyment. The meeting had an unexpectedly small attendance: Maury Sher, mess sergeant of Battery ,D of the Third and chairman of the ways and means committee of the Union; Pri-vate Bushemi, principal stockholder and president; and Private First Class Thomas James Montgomery Mulvehill, chaplain. Private Mulvehill beamed. "Ser-geant Hart sends his regrets. He has a heavy heavy in Lillington. He is with us in spirit, though." "Come in, drip," said Bushemi. Sergeant Sher got down to busi-ness. "I've got to hand it to you, son," he said. "Gone through this much of the month and still haven't tried to get any of your furlough money back from the chaplain! We're all proud of you." "Shucks," I blushed. " 'Twern't nothin'. I was able to bum a ciga-rette here and there." "McGee," said Mulvehill, clearing his throat, "you leave tomorrow for New York, where there are many snares to trap the unwary. Don't buy any gold watches in the park or any stolen furs anywhere. You know, I presume, about buying the Brooklyn Bridge." "Now, we don't have any restric-tions about the way you use your money," said Bushemi. "Only last time you spent too much money on taxicabs. You'll have to use the buses and subway more this trip. All the shows you want to see, all the books you can buy but taxicabs only for very special dates." "Somebody has been exaggerat-ing this taxicab " I began. "Taxicabs," Sher broke in, "only for very special dates. You may go to the opera once if you sit down-stairs and twice if you sit in the Famile Circle. You are not to buy more than six theater tickets. CHAPTER XIV "Sergeant, for days I round up news from battery reporters. There is always too much or too little. When there is too little, I have to write what is needed. When there is too much, I have to choose which battery reporter is going to horse-whip me for leaving his copy out." "The chaplain is right up the ', street," the sergeant said. ''' "Then I have to edit all the copy, ' delete all classified military intelli-- gence and take out all nasty cracks at first sergeants. Then I have to write headlines for all the stories and place them in whatever space I can find for them. Then I must draw everything up into pretty little pages. This is tedious and nerve-rackin- g work." "The chaplain will give you a sympathetic ear," the sergeant said. "I will give you only KP. Does anything you are saying relate to what we're talking about why you weren't in the mess hall yesterday afternoon?" "I was getting around to that, ser-geant. On the day befsre the paper is issued, I have to go into Fayette-vill- e to keep a careful watch over the printers, to see that they don't put Third Regiment news on the Fourth Regiment page. If I am not there, they may even mix head-lines and put church notices under 'Service Club Activities.' It is neces-sary that I be there." The sergeant coughed. "I feel for you, Private Hargrove; I deeply sympathize. I wouldn't think of put-ting you on KP " "You wouldn't?" I gasped eager-ly. "Don't interrupt," the sergeant barked. "As I was saying, I wouldn't think of putting you on KP if you hadn't committed a breach of eti-quette by failing to RSVP the invi-taio- You didn't tell us you weren't coming. Or why." -S- a- I was dozing peacefully, at my typewriter the other morning when there came a knock on my elbow and a bright young voice shouted "Hey!" at me. I looked up into the impish, cheerful, and unquenchably mischievous face of the boss' daugh-ter, Miss Sidney Winkel, age four. Miss Winkel was dressed like the Navy and looked entirely too ener-getic for such a drizzly morning. "I'm to be the Valentine," she said, "and Johnny's going to take my picture and you're to take me up to the Service Club and carry Johnny's things for him and wait for him to get there so you'd bet ter put on your jacket and cap and let's go. "I'm going to have my picture taken with Spud Parker," she add ed. Spud Parker is the general's son and is considered quite an eligi-ble bachelor by the younger set. "Is Spud Parker your boy friend?"' I asked her sleepily. "Oh, no," she said. "Johnny and Tom Mulvehill and Lieutenant Meek and Captain Wilson are my four best boy friends but you're not my boy friend at all because you make faces and stick out your tongue and maybe if you could behave your-self you could be my boy friend." "Pure fiddle-faddle- I told her. "I didn't ask to be your boy friend, anyway. I could have nine hundred girl friends if I wanted to prettier "Let's have no unnecessary vibra-tions, McGee," said the Lieuthom-as- , looking up reproachfully over his glasses. "Coffee is five cents the cup." He beamed at her. She beamed back at him. "I have seven boy friends," she said, raising one forefinger delicate-ly and rubbing the other against it in a highly jeering gesture. "I have seven boy friends and you're not one of them and you're not anybody's boy friend." She hit me this time on the elbow and I made a horrible face at her. "Myaaah," I said. "Who wants to be your boy friend anyway?" "I wish you wouldn't blow smoke," she said. "It makes me cough and it's not nice to smoke anyway. Old cigarettes!" I wearily crushed my last ciga-rette in the ash tray. "Women, the eternal reformer," I sighed. "It wasn't like this in the Old Army." Miss Sidney Winkel took off her sailor cap and arranged her big red hair ribbon. "You're a nasty old thing and you're not nice like Johnny and Tom and Lieutenant Meek and Captain Wilson and all my other boy friends," she said. After a pause she added, airily, "And Ma-jor Long and Captain Quillen, too." "Myaah," I sighed, wrinkling my nose more violently. "Oh there's Johnny," she sudden-ly cried, "and he's going to take my picture and" She tripped off with a bewitching smile for Bushemi and a running line of babble. "No punctuation," I said to Mul-vehill. "It's a woman's world, McGee," he said, reaching for another slice of toast. -f- a- "Get him away from me, Bu-shemi!" roared Private Thomas James Montgomery Mulvehill. "He's got that gleam in his eye. Get him away!" "You're just being difficult, I told him. "Just sit down and relax." The Lieuthomas laid his enormous frame on the bunk and started slapping his knees in utter despair. "What kind of deal are you try-ing to swindle this time?" he asked. "Let's be reasonable, Private Mul-vehill," I said, patting him reassur-ingly on the shoulder. "As you know, I am now working on Captain Winkel's sympathies to get a fur-lough sometime in February . . . the first half of February." "I know what's coming," he screamed. "And I won't do it! I can't do it!" "Now, as you know, furloughs ere laden with little expenses neces-sary little expenses. To help me along with the load. Sergeant Sher and Private Bushemi have already made philanthropic little loans.- - I have your name on my honor roll here, Lieuthomas. What's the do-nation?" - The Mulvehill cringed and edged .away. "What do you need from me?" "Well," I estimated, "I should say that ten dollars." "Great gods and refugee chil-dren," he gasped. "Ten dollars he says yet! Why don't you ask me for my life's blood? Six dollars he owes me already and now he's asking oh, I can't stand it! I can't stand it! Take him away!" "My life's blood," he moaned, "Where's the six I lent you two "Little man," she said, "will you please ask the waiter for more" wa-ter?" In uniform, you can see all the movies you want for two bits each." "And be conservative in tipping the waiters," said Mulvehill, tapping his glasses on the window sill. "Very conservative. Short-chang- e them, if necessary." "Tell him about the budget," said Bushemi, with unnecessary impa-tience. "As the matter stands on the fur-lough deal," said Sher, "you owe Bushemi 22 dollars, me 10, Mulve-hill 10, Hart 10. That's 52 dollars. Counting the ten you'll wire Bushemi for before the week's over, it's 62. With what money we have taken from you and given to the chaplain during the past few weeks,, you should make out all right." "Must I be treated as a child?" I asked. "Okay," said the sergeant, as if I had not spoken, "that's 62 dollars on the red side. Now, on the credit side, you have your wages of 42 dollars for February minus a dol-lar and a half for laundry and a couple of bucks for cleaning. Debts that we can bank on your collecting on payday, 20 dollars. That's $58.50. From 62, take $58.50, leaves three dollars and a half we ain't got." "We can cut it down to size," I said wistfully. "I'll give you three and a half of my furlough money." "Fit the income to the budget," said Bushemi, "never the budget to the income." "I can get four dollars for my coin collection," I sighed. "When you get back broke, Mc- Gee," said Mulvehill, "you are not to eat breakfast at the Service Club-Yo-are not to take out any post exchange books. You will get your cigarettes from Sergeant Sher, who will ration them out to you as per budget." Sher, Private Bushemi, and the other members of the Union of Hargrove's Creditors would have been quite pleased at the sight. In-stead of spending their money lavish-ly on taxicab sightseeing trips and expensive shows, I was dining quiet-ly in a conservative grillroom with the Redhead. We weren't even dis-cussing ways to spend their hard-earne- d money. "Little man," she said, "will you please ask the waiter for more water?" "I beg your pardon," he said, rather unctuously. "There is a fif-teen million gallon shortage in wa-ter at this very instant. On the other hand, madame, all supply ships to Great Britain use Scotch whisky as ballast for the return trip. Perhaps madame would like a glass of Scotch whisky?" The Redhead lifted an eyebrow. "I wonder," she said, "what they use in the finger bowls here rub-bing alcohol? I do not want Scotch whisky. I want water." "It is as madame wishes," the waiter said, bowing from the knees. He walked away and returned again to lean against a post. The Red-head drummed her fingers on the tablecloth. "Don't be afraid of him," said the Redhead. "Call his bluff." (TO BE CONTINUED) "Let's be reasonable, Pvt. Mulve-hill," I said; "As you know, I am working on Capt. Winkle's sympa-thies to get a furlough." than you. Sticks and snails and puppy- -dog tails, that's what girls are made of. So there." Her only reply was an airy, "my-aaah," but you could see that she was affected. The old indifferent treatment always gets them. "There's Tom in the cafeteria," she said. "Let's go see Tom." Thomas James Montgomery Mul-vehill, Pfc, was apparently making his morning rounds in search of news. He was, at the moment, en-gaged in his daily research in the Service Club's toast and coffee. "Hello, sis," he said. "Hello, Mc- Gee. Pull up a chair. McGee, get the lady a drink. Something tall and cool. Such as a chocolate milk. What's the deal, sis?" "I'm to be the Valentine," she said, "and Johnny's going to take my picture and old Hargrove has to take care of Johnny's stuff until Johnny comes and I don't like him anyway because he makes faces and sticks out his tongue and says sticks and snails and puppy-do- g tails that's what little girls are made of and he's not my boy friend any-way." "No punctuation," I said. I wag-gled my ears and stuck, out my tongue at her. "The next time I come," she said, "I'm going to bring some soap and every time he sticks out his tongue I'm going to put soap on it because it isn't nice to stick out your tongue." She emphasized her state-ment by paralyzing my wrist with her fist and sticking her tongue out t m months ago?" - "That was only five weeks ago," I reminded him gently, "and I've already paid two of that back. Three weeks ago I paid it back." "Yeah," he protested, "but you borrowed it back the next day." He rose and paced the floor. "What are they doing to me? My life's blood they ' would draw from my veins? Thirty-si- x measly little dollars a month I make and he wants ten dollars! Maybe I'm Win-thro- p Rockefeller I should lend out ten dollars a clip! Thirty-si- x dol-lars, and he wants half!" "You see, Lieuthomas, a sad and work-wor- n creature an Alice whose only hope for the fu-ture is in the faint glimmering hope of a furlough. Day after day, week in and week out, I have worked my frail fingers to the shoulder blade to make things pleasant for you and Bushemi and Bishop. I have patched your quarrels with the mess ser-geant. I have saved you from the terrible wrath of provoked Rebels. I have sat here at night, sewing but-tons on my blouse so that you wouldn't have to wear it hanging open on your merry jaunts to tovm. Money could not pay for the things I have done for you and Bushemi. And now this. Ten dollars between me and spiritual starvation and no ten dollars. How sharper than a serpent's tooth." "Don't talk like that, Hargrove," he said, his voice cracking. "Put me down for ten." The mighty Mulvehill walked down the barracks aisle, muttering to him-self. "I'm being crucified," he bel-lowed and fell, a crushed hulk, of humanity, to his bunk. was a little note stuck in my typewriter when I came back from prowling for news. It looked like Private ("One-Shot"- ) Bushemi's typing. "The stockholders of the Union of Hargrove's Creditors," it read, "will hold a business meeting this evening about seven o'clock in the latrine of Barracks No. 2, Head-quarters Battery. Please be present or we will beat your head in." It was the day before my furlough, so I got the general drift. The vul-tures who were contributors to the furlough would probably stand around frowning and figure out some sort of budget for my vacation. I could picture the blue-nose- d demons Ski 5644 t f - Y"OU'LL see this set in the vcv best places this winter they're second to none in good looks. Cr-ochet the smart pill-bo- x hat of black wool and please do the separate lowers in pink! The pink ar.d black combination with the match. ing mittens are lovely with a bca-- ver coat or a fur coat of any sort This is distinctly a gala dress-u-set to wear with your winter clothes and it has no age limit. The hat and mittens are as a-ttractive on the chic gray-haire- d woman as they are on the college-girl- ' To obtain complete crocheting for the Hat and Mi!:n Set (Pattern No. 5644) send 16 cems i.i Doin, your name and address and the i. tern number. Due to an unusually large demand current war conditions, slightly more Ire is required in filling orders for a lew of the most popular pattern numbers. Send your order to: HOME NEEDLEWORK 149 New Montgomery Su San Francisco, Calif. f Just 2 drops Penftro Nose Drop3 ia a, h -- K nostril help i- -i Inn rfWYsB'nstantly. to give y. sr M I! U U - J J Jhead cold air. 23- c-: : liv j&&M times as much for;.--- Caution : Use only as ff directed. Always z. y Penetro KoDiPy i fTo relieve distress of H"C'iT.uV GUi&llitf LytUa E. Pinkham's Vegewble Is made especially or iro-to help relieve periodic pain with weak, tired, nervous, blue iee.l' due to functional monthly Taken regularly Pinkham's CoS' pound helps build up such symptoms. Here U product that nelps nature the kind to buy! Famous a; almost a century. Thousacds ur thousands of women have ref benefits. Follow label direction Worth trying! mi'" LYDIA E. PINKHAM'S Inose must Dffln To Relieve Head Cold MiseriM j When head colds strike, help Jj J drain, clear the wavforfreerbreatliin comfort with KONDON'S NASAL JEW. " Give good -- tasting many doctors recomitfJJ Valuable Scott's Emulsion MP promote proper growth, strong j sound teeth! Contains natural A Vitamins-eleme- nts all children n;;j. Mother give Scott's daily W ,.; 55, 'round. Buy at all d'11- --' BEfflpii By PaulMallon Released by Western Newspaper Union. WHAT AMERICA FACES IN YEAR AHEAD WASHINGTON. The official head-lines have cheered us with almost daily victories through 1943, but any sober contemplation of 1944. must make us look behind them at the reality of our war effort. In Italy, the Pacific islands and New Guinea, we have been engaged in costly, brave but token-scal- e fight-ing. A very small fraction of our massive army has even now a month more than two years after the war started seen the enemy. There have been official estimates that 2,500,000 (possibly about a third of our preparing army) will be over-seas by New Year's Day. Official pronouncements disclose that we had four divisions in action in Tunisia, five in Sicily, and four or five in Italy about 60,000 to 75,000 men fighting at a time. About half these divisions have carried on through, so that only half of them may be assumed to be addi-tional troops. These considerations would furnish an estimate that a little over 100,000 men had yet seen action on this front. On Guadalcanal and in the Solo-mons-, three different divisions have been mentioned. In New Guinea, elements of two more have been of-ficially declared. A division is sup-posed to have been involved at Attu. Thus in the Pacific, the estimate could be safely placed at around 90,000 in action, plus the 19,000 regu-lars who fought for the Philippines. Certainly few more than 200,000 troops one-tent- h of the land force supposed to be overseas now and only an infinitesimal 2Vz per cent of the army we have been raising and training to beat the Axis have yet been turned upon the enemy. This does not mean their fighting has not been great and historic. Valor and greatness in combat do not rest on numbers. Nor will any future action of this war be more important than the work they had to do. The only point al this cold truth is we are still in the prepara-tory phase of this war now more than two years after its start. REASONS FOR FORGETTING That none of us has fully appre-ciated these facts, however, is due to several natural reasons. In the first place, collapse of the German war machine was anticipat-ed because of a shortage of oil and raw materials, and this proved un-justified. Secondly, the air corps expected bombings of German cities to bring a possible capitulation due to the same reasons, and this may come any day, but it has not come yet. Furthermore, it was wise and nec-essary for us to make the Nazis continue to believe new invasions of Europe were imminent, in order to keep as many Germans as possible away from the Russian front. Finally, "the profound extent of Nazi stubbornness in continued fruit-less resistance to the Russians has been truly amazing. Only a nation which wants suicide could continue to face what Germany faces with the new year. The end of the war in Europe is surely to be expected this coming year. Fuller use of our great power is practically promised officially, not on far scattered atolls but in concentrated power. Places where the blows are to be launched have almost officially been suggested. Disappointments cannot continue to delay the inevitable. Yet if we continue only to plod along remote sandy island by island in the Pacific, and mountain by mountain in Italy with no more than 200,000 men in action on land, anyone can see this war could last interminably (the long hard years originally forecast) My best guess is Germany will yet crack, and quickly, that the war in Europe will certainly end in the first s:x months of 1944, probably the first quarter, and that Japan will last less than a year longer. GETTING ELECTED AND 'TAX VOTING' A young lawyer friend of mine in the Southwest decided to enter poli- tics as a career. He started the right way, at the bottom, getting himself elected to a county board of supervisors. At once, however, he raised the tax levy on all real estate in the county, caused an increase in the valuations and just about doubled he tax bill on all the people. I thought that would nip his political career practically in embryo. But immediately he ran for the state legislature, and was elected almost unanimously. Both he and I found that not a single taxpayer resented bered his permanent doubC rf ty, but a small group ot individ als whose lands were benefited by building a sewer tu erty, thereby increa 'ing its'e" and certain farmers JL . clearly remembered his work fn unanimous sentiment for him actions paid off. Hls totalize TaMh- r me on of American n CuUar COndi" the ledeI B0 to I have 3 Whole-t-be defeawtrTo; gTSZ? gettingf:rextydituUrCes1odredsin Propriationsf'oTherr0018' ap" That means dent one, can harriil ' r a Pru" by undPry SUCCeed temasnowTadcetce7al sys- - Even a Friend Might A'ot " Appreciate Such Greeting Several years ago George Ace was visiting London and, iee!:r.j lonesome, suddenly spotted a rr.an he thought he knew back horre. He rushed up eagerly and gave the fellow a. resounding whack on the back, causing his glasses to fly off, his hat to sail into the a:r and his armload of bundles to t'l into the street. Then he discovered, his mistake and apologized profusely to the stranger, explaining that he thought the man to be an old friend. "Oh, that's quite all right, cli chap," said the Englishman, "cut er tell me, does your fric.-- J care for this sort of thing?" Queer Names Bring Fine ' Zoroaster and Jupiter are th; names of two children of Euer .: Aires, Argentina. Their park' s were fined on the ground that tr. " had no right to give them absuri names. |