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Show LB WHO'S NEWS THIS WEEK i I By LEMUEL F. PARTON (Consolidate) Features WNU Service.) XTEW YORK. The army could ' use a few top-flight Broadway playwrights, particularly those who have had war experience. But it . . already has Army Impresario Us own Da. Injects Realism vid Belasco. , , ... War games. Into War Games to condition our new army of 1,400,000 men for real combat now provide the utmost ut-most in dramatic realism. There nre machines to simulate faithfully the screaming of Stuka bombers; there will be the roar of gunfire with blank cartridges, of course; there will be parachute attacks, machine ma-chine gunning from airplanes, and every possible device to keep the boys from forgetting that "they're in the army now." Gen. Lesley James McNair, chief of staff of general headquarters, head-quarters, a small, keen, alert man who seems omnipresent in the army camps, Is the impresario impre-sario in this the army's biggest and most serious venture in applied ap-plied theatricals. He has had long experience in war games and has convincingly portrayed them as invaluable rehearsals for the real thing, not only for the instruction imparted but for the unconscious, reflex conditioning condi-tioning of nerves and sensitivity to the now heightened tumult of war. When the nucleus of a general headquarters staff was formed July 25, 1940, General McNair was put at the head of it. That subsequently placed in his hands the intensified and expanded war-training maneuvers, maneu-vers, far exceeding anything ever before attempted, and last September Septem-ber he took over the entire training program of the rapidly increasing army. It is regarded as an undertak-- undertak-- Ing of the utmost importance and President Roosevelt recently recent-ly promoted the army Belasco from major general to the rank of temporary lieutenant general. His knowledge of war is by no means confined to make-believe. He fought with the field artillery artil-lery in France and won the U. S. Distinguished Service medal and the French Legion of Honor. He is a native of Minnesota and was graduated from West Point in 1904. ' I 'HIS writer went to the wedding of a young woman friend a few weeks ago. The bridegroom was a tall, loose-geared, bespectacled PL r j- young man er chance Radio ,,, with an en- Beam Led Inventor chanting grin T n i d "j and a thick To Comely Bride tnatch 0I brownish hair. The bride told us he was a scientist. We should have known that he was Russell Varian, the inventor, with his brother Sigurd and several other associates, of the Klystron radio generator which American technicians say is better than anything the British have in their new plane-spotting system and which has made blind-flying, in fog or night, like a trip around the block in a baby-carriage. Russell Varian worked his way through Stanford, odd-jobbing for the professors. His brother Sigurd was a flight captain with the Pan-American Airways on Mexican and Central Cen-tral American routes. One day Russell Rus-sell got a letter from Sigurd in which Sigurd said he was tired of ramming around in fog and night and they ought to get together and work out a radio beam which homing hom-ing planes could really follow. Russell Rus-sell thought that was a good idea, so Sigurd brought him his savings of $4,000 and the boys set up a workshop at Halcyon. Their facilities just wouldn't do. Dr. David L. Webster, head of the department of physics, at Stanford, provided a laboratory, gave them effective aid in every possible way and rrmde them research associates of the university, uni-versity, but the university could provide no funds. Sigurd's $4,000 dwindled to 547. The young men - were living sketchily when the Klystron came through. A representative rep-resentative of the Bureau of Civil Civ-il Aeronautics put them in touch with the Sperry Gyroscope Co. Sperry hurriedly plunked down a check for S25.000 and built a laboratory for Russell in Garden City, Long Island. Russell came to New York. His radio beam had guided him straight to Miss Jane Martinson, a comely research worker in biochemistry, niece of Miss Bessie Beatty of the current radio team of "Betty and Bill." It was a case of love at first sight on the part of both. Hence the wedding, just a fortnight later, in the East Nineteenth street residence of Adolph Berle. now occupied by Miss Beatty. Bride and bridegroom, both tireless hikers, had their outdoor out-door tegs ready for a long vacation vaca-tion and honeymoon tramp through New England. |