Evening star., 1942-06-16
.Women's Group
Warned Against
RumOr Menace
Var Department
Section Hears
Mrs. Do0liffle

Section Hears
Mrs. Doolittle
BY Gretchen Smith.
The wagging tongues Of rumor
mongers came in for scathing re-
buke by speakers at a luncheon
given yesterday by the women's
interests section of the War De-
partment Bureau of Public Rela-
tions at the Hay-Adams House.
Speaking before members of the
section and the Advisory Council of
the women's interests section COM
posed of Representatives from 33
national women's organizations, Col.
Frederick George Sutton, a member
of the Australian Military Mission
to Washington, and Mrs. James
Doolittle, wife of the famous leader
of the Toxic bombing, sounded a
warning against the danger of
spreading rumors.
One OF the gravest dangers to his
country's early war program was the
spreading of rumors, the Australian
colonel declared. He told of a re-
port supposed to have been heard
by 300 persons over the radio from
Berlin. In the final showdown,
only one person actually said he had
heard the report, Col Sutton said,
and that person was soon proven q
! dangerous allen liar"
Refrain from chattering," he ad-
vised. "Rumor begets r,Nnor and so
1t goes on and on"
The colonel told of the work Aus
tralian women are doing and the
work which American women will
soon be doing in the war program.
Whatever we do we must pull
together as team" he asserted.
Much damage can be done by
rumors." he concluded. "One way
the women of America can help is
to refrain from chattering."
Speaking on her life as an Army
wife" Mrs. Doolittle also spoke on
the necessity of silence" She told
how she knew nothing of her hus-
bands plans of whereabouts at the
time of his famous flight over Japan.
Il am glad I knew nothing and I
never asked questions" she said. "I
knew that his safety and the safety
OF his men depended upon abso-
lutte secrecy"
The flyers wife caused consider
able laughter by her Army reminis-
cence on gossip" Through false
rumorS, she was once accused of
having been married five times, she
said, each time to an aviator. She
explained that her identity had been
confused with another woman who
had been married five times.
IT have only been married once"
she laughed. "and the other woman
had been married five times, but not
once to an aviator"
Mrs. Doolittle said she had re-
Gently returned from a trip West,
where "every one talked too much
and there were too many rumors."
She concluded with word to the
clubwomen: Il wish you would do
something about stopping this chat
ter that is going around"
Sharing honors. on the program
with Col. Sutton and Mrs. Doolittle
was Col. Jacobus A. Verkuyl of the
Netherlands East Indies, among the
last of his countrymen to leave Java
before its occupation by the Jap
aneSe.
He told how the japanese won the
first round Of battle" because of
air superiority.
"We1l catch up with them, never
fear, and we won't stop until we do,
he declared.
The speaker justified the admiral
who led the battle of the Coral Sea
against great odds.
Had he deserted the people In
the hour of their peril, he would not
have been worthy of his steward
ship" he said, referring to the re-
lationship between the people of
the Netherlands Indies and the
Netherlands, which has existed for
over $50 years.
Guests were introduced by Col.
r. Ernest Dupuy, General Staff
Corps, chief of the planning and
liaison branch of the Bureau of
Public Relations, War Department.
Special honor was given a pretty
Army nurse, Miss Mary Lohr, who
served throughout the siege of
Bataan and was among the last
evacuated from besieged Corregidor
in an Army bomber to Australia
The entire room stood up in def
erence to the brave nurse, upon
her introduction.
Mrs. Emily Newell Blair, chief of
the women's interests section, pre-
sided at the luncheon, which was
part of the program of an all-day
conference called by the section to
meet with the council War prob
lens of special concern to club
women and organized groups were
discussed at morning and afternoon
sessions.
Guests at the speakers table in
cluded Mrs. Oveta c. Hobby, newly
appointed director of the Women's
Auxiliary Army Corps: Maj. Gen.
Alexander D. Surles, chief of the
Bureau of Public Relations, War De-
partment; COL Virgil Shaw of the
Bureau of Public Relations, War
Department; Mrs Surles, Col Robert
Lovett, Bureau of Public Relations;
Mrs. Doolittle; Col Verkuyl; Mrs.
George C. Marshall, wife of the
chief of staff: Col. Dupuy, Mrs.
Blair, Col. Sutton, Mrs. Archibald
MacLeish, assistant national direc-
tor of Volunteer Special Services,
American Red Gross; Capt. Lincoln
| O'Brien, Miss Lohr and Miss LYDIA