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MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE and a Happy New Year. Shucks, I know it
isn’t Christmas, but it’s in the air. Just look what’s happening. Phil Vaughan,
local P. M., is issuing the usual Xmas warning. Mail early. Kids are writing letters
to Santa Claus. Stores are having pre-Xmas clearance sales, or post Thanksgiving
sales. The Salvation Army is out with its kettles and bells. And the weather is
that very best brand of beautiful Iowa Fall weather.
HERE’S THE FROSTING on the Dodgers’ football cake. Dick
Woodard, the 17-year-old dynamite kid, made everyone’s all state team.
He’d gained during the year over 1,200 yards. He had thrown forward passes for almost
as many more. He weighed 195 pounds and nobody ever really stopped him. He made
the first teams of the L.D.P.A. and of the Register. Tom Pray,
as rugged an end as the Dodgers have ever had, was first choice of ends on the I.D.P.A.
first team and was placed on the Register’s second team, A phenomenal pass receiver,
he had racked up more points than any other end in the state playing in major competition.
Kenny Schmoker, who played an outstanding guard all season, made
the Register’s fifth team. Knack, Carpenter, Walt Fieseler, Willard Whitcombe
and Jim Sells received honorable mention. Carpenter and Knack are
the only regulars coming back next year. But don’t let that worry you. Marquis had
top shelf reserves all season. Some of those sophomores are giants. Do you remember
that little Ernst boy? He now weighs 204 pounds. But fast. He played
second string quarter this year. The Dodgers will be no soft touch next year. They'll
be hard to beat.
HOME TOWN. O. J. Whittemore has been appointed
to the school board to fill the vacancy created by the death of Don Peterson
. . . The Dodgers go to Boone tonight for the first basketball game of the Dodger
season. Other teams in the county have been playing for weeks. YLFH will cover basketball,
yes sir . . . Mrs. Robert Ertl died last Saturday . . . Carl
Aabye will head the Red Cross War Fund Drive . . . Robert Burlingame,
news commentator for WHO, the voice of victory, spoke at the Woman’s Club and Kiwanis
this week . . . Mrs. Herman Block died last Sunday. Her son,
Melvin Block, is in service . . . Lt. Thomas Kearns,
pilot
of a P-38, who died in North Africa on June 22nd after a jeep accident, was
awarded
the fourth oak leaf cluster to the air medal this week . . . The High School
Victory
Corps had a box social last week and sold $250.00 in war stamps . . . Vice is
being
discouraged in F. D. The old “hotel” down near the I. C. depot was raided again.
County Attorney Tom Healy says of the offenders, “they have sabotaged
American youth.” He promises speedy trials . . . The sealing price on corn in Webster
county this year is 83 cents . . . Lt. Charles F. O’Connor went
thru Fort Dodge on a troop train recently. The movement being a military secret,
he couldn’t let him family know. He writes, “The waves we got from the platforms
and along the right of way in and around Fort Dodge were the friendliest of the
whole trip.” He’s on the West Coast now . . . Mrs. Harold T. Larsen
has been ordered to report for basic training in the Marine Corps at Camp LeJeune,
New River, N. C., December 12th . . . Soft coal is up 60 cents a ton in Iowa . .
. Lehigh women of the Red Cross are getting out 10,000 dressings a week . . . The
Country Club is closed for the winter and Mrs. Jett Wray has gone
to Los Angeles to spend the winter with her brother . . . The poultry thieves are
on the loose again. Leo Scott, living S.W. of town, lost ten turkeys
last Sunday. Some weighed 20 pounds . . . Dr. Matt Sanders
is back in town. He returned from Iowa City by ambulance Monday . . . A doe and
a fawn have suddenly appeared from nowhere and taken up residence in Dolliver Park.
HAPPY LANDING. Lt. Ronald J. Spinharney in North
Africa . . . Pfc. John Cumming in England . . . Corp. Joe McCarville,
in England with the Army Air forces . . . Pfc. William Thorsbakken,
with the army air forces in England. His brother Leonard, a survivor
of the Lexington, is in the S.W. Pacific . . . Corp. Clair J. Stewart,
somewhere overseas . . . S/Sgt. Oscar J. Olson, tail gunner in
a Fort, somewhere in England.
HOME AGAIN. Jordan E. Tonsfeldt, S2/c, back in
the U. S. after three years in the Navy. He has been assigned to a signal school
in Portland, Maine.
PROMOTED. From Corporal to Sgt., Eldred Prang,
with the Army Air forces in New Guinea . . . E. V. Swindle, to
Corporal. He’s with the Army Signal Corps at New Orleans, La. . . . Dean
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Buck, from Gunner’s Mate 3/c to 2/c. His brother Darol
is a Fireman 1/c. Both are in the S.W. Pacific . . . Francis E. Weiss,
from Corp. to Sgt. at Camp Barkeley, Texas . . . To Sgt., Donald O. Buck
at Fort Bliss, Texas.
ON FURLOUGH. Pfc. Keith B. Rowley, from Buckley
Field, Denver, Colo. . . . Pvt. Richard Mailander, from New York
City, on his way to the West Coast . . . David E. Edwards, Chief
Commissary Steward, from North Africa. His son, Donald, S/e Bugle
master, is at Norfolk, Va. . . . John Snook, from Camp Adair, Ore.
S/Sgt. Melvin Campbell from Fort Dix, N. J. He’s with the Field
Artillery . . . Corp. John Moburg of Gowrie from Great Bend, Kansas
. . . Fred Cooper, Jr., from boot camp at Farragut, Idaho. Got
here without telling his folks about it just in time for a late Thanksgiving dinner.
Had the pleasure of eating with Bill Armstrong, who had to leave
a few hours later for Camp Dodge for assignment. Bud is in the Navy hospital corps
. . . Sgt. Paul Dahlquist, from Camp Adair, Oregon, on his way
to Arizona . . . Corp. Vearl Thompson from Camp Stoneman, Cal .
. . .M/Sgt. C. H. Strohscheon from Fort Jackson, Miss. . . .
Ronald Wearmouth S 1/c from New York City.
WEDDING BELLS. Marjorie Jordan of Nashua to Sgt.
Wilford G. Olson of Thor, stationed at Camp Adair, Oregon, on November
17th . . . Gertrude Linn of Gowrie to Pfc. William H. Williams,
of Fort Dodge, at Coffeyville, Kansas . . . Betty Jensen to Pvt.
Ray Jordison at Fort Dodge, November 21.
SICK CALL. Pfc. William Rankin of Lehigh, back
from North Africa, is in a hospital in Temple, Texas. Says he’s feeling fine . .
. Lt. Don G. Tepfer, with the Army Air Corps at Geneva, Neb., is
in the hospital at Topeka, Kansas. Fatigue and flying nerves. Too much overtime
in the air . . . Corp. Glenn E. Brown, Savannah, Ga., is in the
hospital with an injured back. Got it about the time he was promoted to Corporal
. . . Pfc. Richard Fawkes of Otho is returning to the U. S. from
Australia to receive further treatment for wounds received in the fighting in New
Guinea last December . . . Pfc. Elwood Hoover of Lehigh is back
from twenty months’ service in New Guinea and Australia. He’s in a San Francisco
Army Hospital, recovering from malaria and skin infections . . . Corp. Paul
Schwering of Duncombe is in a Canadian hospital in Sicily. He is suffering
from malaria. His unit was with Montgomery’s Eighth Army in Africa and in Sicily
. . . Pfc. Verlyn Langerman is recovering from malaria in a hospital
in Australia. He’s lost thirty pounds.
HERE AND THERE. Frank Sims, now Lieutenant in
the
Air Corps, is finishing a course in combat flying at Alexandria, La. In town and
back from Farragut, Idaho, are John Kearns, Eugene Dolder
and Gale Stringer. They have finished boot training . . . Bob
Stewart, now a Lt., with the Marines, is flying a dive bomber in the
S.W. Pacific. Hal is in the Navy, playing with the Navy band at Navy Pier in Chicago
. . . Corp. McLoughlin, of Clare, now in the S.W. Pacific, surprised
his wife on Thanksgiving day, their first wedding anniversary, with gifts of silverware
and roses . . . Corp. Paul McDonnell, back from North Africa, spoke
before the Wa-Tan-Ye Club at the Warden Hotel, Monday noon . . . S/Sgt. Keith
Smokstad, a prisoner in Germany, writes to his mother that he was recently
moved from one prison camp to another in interior Germany. He said the country thru
which he passed was really beautiful, and that he’d like to make the trip under
more pleasant circumstances . . . Kenneth Lochner, formerly Highway
Patrol Officer, now with the Navy at Ames . . . Lt. Alma Shrank,
is doing P.X. work at Pine Bluff, Ark. . . . Mark Cavanaugh and
Robert E. Johnson are at the Army Air School at San Antonio, Texas
. . . Sgt, Merle Olofson is in Italy. He writes of his brother
who preceded him. “I have a hunch that Arnim is somewhere around
here too but won’t know until I can get out and around, which I hope will be soon.”
. . . Pfc. Max Whitman, back sometime from the Solomons, has been
assigned to guard duty at Red Bank, N. J. He has been in the hospital at Great Lakes,
for treatment for malaria . . . Lt. John Antolik is in England.
He is helping his outfit organize a football team.
THEY MET. They met a long, long way from home . . . Mark
Nelson, S 1/c from Duncombe, is back in New Orleans after a long trip with
a gun crew on a merchant ship. In a South American port he met Robert Starkey,
a Navy man with whom he had gone
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to High School. Over on the other side of the world in an Asiatic port he met a
neighbor, Richard Heiman, who is also in the Navy . . . They met
in England—Sgt. Fergus Kenyon of the Army Air Forces and Pfc.
C. A. Garlock, Jr. Then they spent a furlough in Scotland . . . They
met in Italy—Dr. Roger Minkel and Dr. Wilbur Thatcher.
They are both Captains in the Medical Corps. Capt. Minkel says
that he is living on the farm of an Italian who lived in Waterbury, Conn., for twenty
years. Capt. Thatcher
is top surgeon in his outfit and has operated on a number of Iowa boys, some from
Perry, Grand Junction and Boone.
MAN WITH WINGS. First Lt. Jack Douglas
is now Operations Officer at MacDill Field, Tampa, Florida.
NOTE FOR SANTA. Lt. Nancy Sittig
, Army Nurse, writes from England that she’d like some good old fashioned Iowa pop
corn to pop for Christmas.
HERO, Capt. “Pete” Alger is back in this country
from the S.W. Pacific. He has shot down at least five Zeros and has been awarded
the silver star, the air medal, the flying cross, and the oak leaf cluster.
IN THE MONEY. Theodore Roosevelt Henderson joined
the Navy’s ship repair service this week. Henderson is a 38-year-old farm pends
His take, because he has six children, will be $273.20 a month.
HE’S TIRED OF PINEAPPLE. Avery Phillips is with
the Coast Guard in Honolulu. Some guys get all the pineapple.
YOUR LETTERS TO US: C. E. “Red” Moreland, aviation
cadet, Tuscon, Ariz.: “Really believe that Fort Dodge is as much, if not more behind
her soldiers than any town I’ve heard of. I always refer to Fort Dodge as the ‘Capital
of the World’.”
Corp. Geo. C. Robeson, U.S.M.C., New River, N. C.: “Speaking of
traveling, I would like to submit my qualifications: 34 states plus Washington,
D. C., Hawaii, Mexico, and all over the South Pacific islands . . . I’ve been overseas
twenty months and will be going back again in the spring.
M/ Sgt. G. Stockwell, in the S.W. Pacific: “I am stationed in the
S.W. Pacific, fighting a few Japs. I met a boy the other day by the name of John
Burke. His sister Helen used to work in your office. I also met William Carter from
the old home town,”
Pvt. John L. Martin
, The Citadel, Charleston, S. C.: “The Cita is truly ‘Southern’ and really a swell
place.”
Pvt. Marvin McCoy, Elkins, W. Va.: “This country is sure pretty.
Hunting season is open now for bear, deer, coon, wild
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turkey, grouse and pheasant . . . Al Spittal from Fort Dodge is
here with me. John Brand and Amzie Yoder from
Fort Dodge were here but have gone to another outfit.”
S/Sgt. Ward G. Roberts, Childress, Texas: “After being a mechanic
for ten years the army has me in the office. I don’t especially like it, but it
has to be done so here I am . . . Corp. Ernest Flickinger is here
and Aviation Cadet James Dennery. He will will graduate from here
as a 2nd Lt, Bombardier-Navigator on December 4th. He was married recently to WAVE
Ensign Jean Fowler who is at Corpus Christi. (Ed. Note: We received
word this morning that A/C James Dennery was killed in a plane
crash last night, December 1st.)
We had other grand letters from Corp. Glenn E. Brown, Base Hospital,
Ward 6, Hunter Field, Savannah, Ga.; from Alice C. Koerner, SW
3/c, New Orleans, La.; Pvt. John J. Dowd, Amarillo, Texas;
Robert B. Porter, Bermuda Islands; W. H. W. Muenster, CM 1/e, N.A.T.T.C.,
Chicago, Ill.; Corp. Deno Castagnoli, Santa Rosa, Calif.; Robert
J. Riles, S 1/c, Alaska; A/C R. E. Marsh, Americus,
Ga.; Major John C. Shrader, APO Los Angeles, Calif.; Corp.
Don Jensen, Camp J. T. Robinson, Little Rock, Ark; and Pfc. Bill Kinkner,
APO Los Angeles, Calif. I know how long it takes to write a letter and how little
time you have. With mothers and fathers and sweethearts and sisters and brothers
and wives and buddies to write to, I am amazed that you ever find time to drop us
a line. When you do, I am humbly grateful. Write to the others first. Then if and
when you do have time, drop us a line.
Your mail is the first thing that’s opened when it hits my desk. We are as excited
about it as the kids are about Santa Claus. I think we enjoy sending these letters
out as much as you seem to like getting them. We are acknowledging all of your letters
over the air. We read parts of them on the program each day. I think sometimes that
your letters home are more important to our morale than anything else. Fathers and
mothers carry them around in their pockets. Whole families read them and re-read
them until they are almost worn out, Friends and neighbors read them, too. You think
they are ever thrown away? No, sir, They are like your picture on the mantel, like
that service flag in the window. They are treasured, they are saved.
Maybe I better stop here. I’m beginning to make a sound like letting down my hair.
We'll be in the groove and sending again next week. Until then, so long and good
luck.
Your home town scribe, ED BREEN.
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