The Hardin tribune-herald. [volume] (Hardin, Mont.) 1925-1973, 1942-05-28
WNU Service, 1343 II Street, NV,
Washington, d. c.

WNU Service, 1343 Fl Street, NV,
Washington, d. c.
"You commentators" said an
earnest young lady to me recently,
talk about sinking ships and shoot
Ing down planes as if you we're
talking about somebody moving in
animate chessmen on a board.
I hadn't thought of it that way.
We do. We have to. And the peo-
pie take it that way. They are a
long way off from actual combat.
You just can't translate a war into
personal experience-until it hits
you.
That is why it has taken the re-
verberations of the Nazi torpedoes
that are sending down ships within
eyesight of our coast so long to
reach Washington. But they have
reached at last and there promises
to be a resounding echo in the Mari
time commission and in the ship
yards of America.
The need for ships is the greatest
need the allied nations face today
for the boats are going down faster
than they are being built. They are
not being built as fast as they might
be. Those we have are not being
used to best advantage. Those are
the blanket charges soon to be
aired, if certain people in Washing
ton have their way.
The details Of these charges may
appear before this reaches print.
The story seems to be exactly the
same story that lay behind the de-
lay in the manufacture Of tanks and
planes and guns which resulted in
overhauling Of the OPM. The
charges which were made in that
case, you will recall, were:-that in
dustry did not want to change over
from the manufacture of civilian
goods to war products; that labor
refused to cooperate; that the gov
eminent failed to crack down on
industry and labor and, in the case
of the OPM. retained dollar-a-year
men in its service who put the bust
ness they represented ahead Of the
nations needs.
Whether or not these charges can
be made to stick and their causes
removed in the case Of the Mari
time commission and shipbuilding
management and labor remains to
be seen, but the chances are they
will.
These are the things you hear:
More bananas we're shipped to the
United States in the first three
months after Pearl Harbor than
there we're last year before Pearl
Harbor). Couldn't those boats have
been put to better use?
Why wasn't the pipeline. suggest
ed a year ago. built so that necessary
oil could be sent through it instead
of aboard tankers that are being
sunk at the rate Of three a day?
Couldn't the railroads have been
forced to cut down on their passen-
ger traffic earlier to haul some Of
that oil?
What was done about the men
'1oafng in the shipyards" after Ad-
miral Land, head Of the Maritime
commission. made the public
charge?
Ditto concerning foremen who
were said to have been instructed
to tell the men to slow down?
But nothing will be done until the
smoke of those burning ships gets
into the public's eyes. It has al
ready gotten into some eyes and I
am passing along that personal
story exactly as it was told to me
Here it is in the workers exact
words except for deletions which are
a military necessity:
Eyewitness Story
Il have just been watering my
in the cool of the evening
oAus AoOhAAS w iEOHi the petuul6S
and carnations I was able to see the
greasy smoke billowing up
from a ship that was t~orpedoed q
few hours ago. A good many men
we're killed on this particular ship.
The rest we're brought into the coast
guard station; some of them sent to
The hotel and the rest to the local
hospital, whose ward is again filed
with shipwrecked survivors.
II have a special interest in that
because I watched her
lying off shore all through the moon
light night. She was three miles off
shore and she got under way just at
steaming south in the pre-
safety of daylight. We
quit watching her at 7 a. m. and
half an hour later. off the . she
was blown up.
1T has been a comparatively
auiet "a hours in this vicinity only