La Grande evening observer. (La Grande, Or.) 1904-1959, July 21, 1945, Image 1

Historic Oregon Newspapers

La Grande evening observer., July 21, 1945, Image 1

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Newspaper Page TextJaps Say Halsey to Hit Soon By WILLIAM F. TVHEE GUAM, July 21 (UP) Tokyo spokesmen hinted Adm. William F. Halsey's allied bat tle fleet is bearing back for Japan today to follow up its 11-day bombardment of the home islands with a new blow at southern Honshu or Hok kaido. There was no official word from fleet headquarters on the whereabouts of Hal sey's Armada. But Japanese broadcasts said American and British warships, perhaps 150 strong, had rearmed and refueled at a secret Pacific rendezvous and are expected at any time. New ''Secret' ' At the same time, the enemy boasted of new "secret weapons" awaiting the allied raiders and a naval spokesman declared the remnants of the Imperial fleet would shortly be thrown into action for "one last blow." Swarms of U. S. army war olanes from Iwo Jima and Oki nawa, meanwhile, carried the pre invasion bombardment through its 45th straight day with a series of slashing attacks on Honshu and Kyushu. All Alone Cen. Douglas MacArthur's Oki nawa-based airpower joined in the assault on Honshu for the first time, when a lone B-24 Lib erator bombed the Miho airfield on the southern part of the main island. At the same time, a fleet of 94 seventh air force Mustang fight ers flew 1,600 miles round-trip from Iwo to strafe airfields and aircraft factories in the Nagoya Osaka area. Striking in successive waves, the Mustangs beat up the area with rockets and machine gun fire, meeting no aerial opposition and only moderate anti-aircraft fire. Got Six - They spotted only 12 enemy planes and destroyed one and probably a second of those, dam aging six others. Fifth air force raiders from Okinawas were over Kyushu in force throughout the day, bombing and strafing airfields railroad targets, water front installations and factories near Kushakino and Miyakonojo. Another 200 heavy and medium bombers and fighters from Mac Arthur's command .ripped, up.five airdromes and dock facilities at Shanghai in their second straight raid on the Chinese,, port. Large fires were set all over the target area and nine grounded Japanese planes were destroyed or dam aged. ' i Next Paper Scrap, Tin Can Pickup Next Weekend The lowly tin can and the un worthy scrap paper, both of which have assumed great im portance in the fight against the axis, are still in demand and La Grande residents are urged to prepare the tin cans and scrap paper they have to be picked up next week. During all the coming week, Cub Scouts will be calling on householders lo remind them the pickup is Friday and Saturday, and to help them prepare the cans and paper. Cans must be flattened and paper must be bundled. First pickup will be Friday afternoon for all the city west of Fourth street; the next pickup will be for all of the city east of Fourth street and will take place Saturday afternoon. Bundles and cans should be placed on the curbs in the morning. Lynne Bohnenkamp, salvage committee chairman, said a dona tion will be made by the com mittee to the Masonic hospital fund. Yank Subs Sink 11 More Jap Vessels WASHINGTON, July 21 (UP) American submarines have Mink 11 more Japanese vessels in lar eastern waters, the navy an nounced today. The bag included four small combatant craft. Vessels destroyed were two minesweepers, two patrol escort vessels, one large cargo trans port, one medium transport, three "nail merchant vessels and two freighters. This brought to 1,174 the num ber of enemy ships sunk by American undersea craft In this war. TJhis total includes 144 enemy warships. Todays announcement of sub marine losses was the first since early this month, ahe the sink ing of 10 Japanese ve! was an nounced. Q ti O Weather o Data for 24 hours to 7 a. m. Tefi5erruret Maximum 9fc) Minimum 52 Forecast: Partly cloudy toniphi and Sunday. Scattered shower, cooler Sunday. ESTABLISHED 1898 VZ7 SB IT" i-.J- "if HALIFAX ROCKED BY EXPLOSIONS One of the explosions which rocked the city of Halifax and surrounding countryside as the big ammunition dump of Royal Canadian naval arsenal went up in flames. Disaster started when fire spread from burning beige at arsenal pier. First Flight Made In La Grande to Portland Service Air service between eastern Oregon and Portland today be- eamfe available withj the first daily charter flight being made this morning from La Grande to Portland. The five men loft at about 7:30 a.m. today in a Waco cabin plane owned by Eastern Oregon Airways.- Regular scheduled flight will start next Monday. As guests of Merlin Johnson and Keith Province, proprietors of Eastern Oregon Airways which instituted the service, Raymond Gray, president of the chamber of commerce La Grande, Harry McCarthy, La Grande merchant, and Frank Schiro, publisher of the La Grande Evening Obser ver, made the first flight into Portland. Gray, manager of Eastern Ore gon Light and Power company, said on arrival in Portland, "this rvice is of tremendous import ance to our section of the state. It provides a long-needed mod ern passenger service, linking eastern Oregon with Oregon's metropolis." The five will return later to day for completion of the first dual-way service. A $500,000 municipal field provides the La urande base. WLB Decision Not Affecting Labor Conditions Here Decision of the national war labor board in setting aside the $1.75 an hour rate for power sawing in the west coast lumber industry does not affect the Mt. Emily Lumber company, it was announced here today. The decision leaves in effect the guide rate of $1.40 an hour with' certain' differentials, which arc right in line with rates estab lished in this area and which the west cc)ist lumber commission had also established. Labor mem bers of the board dissented from the decision. WLB Says 'Above All State Laws' WASHINGTON, July 21 (UP) The war labor board today ses itself above new state laws pass ed to offset WLB policy on main tenance of membership and other forms of union security. In deciding a Florida case the WLB said its decisions supersed ed state constitutions as well as state laws. It decided that the vote last November by the peo ple of Florida for a right-to-work amendment to their state consti tution is not binding upon the board. The decision v. a the board's first involving labw legislation approved Hi laid Novumber's elec tions or enacted by, 1945 state legislature'. It was regarded as a precedent tor decisions vlhilh may involve similar state acts or constitutional Smendments ap proved in Arkansas, South Da-kotar-and Ojer states. r " w ' y CAPT. BOB KARTHER de scribes flights to Jap home land from Guam. Karther Finishes 27 Air .Missions Against Japan Capt. Bob C. Karther, La Grande, has "completed 27 mis sions against the homeland of Japan, a total of over 400 com bat hours. He is- commanding officer of the Superfortress "City of Ra leigh," (Jughaid III to the crew) based on Guam. Captain Karther, son of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Karther, and husband qf the former Mildred Hardey, entered the air force in March, 1942, and graduated from the Roswell, N. M., field in Feb ruary of '43, when he transferred into combat training. His over seas duty began in February of this year. Lead Crew He recently has been promoted to captain and has been awarded the distinguished flying cross and the air medal with two oak leaf clusters. His is an authorized lead crew and has- led several formations over their targets in Japan. He also rides check flights with co pilots who are trying to qualify for first pilot on B-2!)s. The Superfort shown in the June 18 edition of Life magazine is Cap tain Karther's plane. It is the one shown with the Jap plane just off the left wing. An excerpt from his latent let ter follows, telling of incidents from flights. Hat Record "Jughaid III has established a record here in our group. She has 35 missions to her credit without having to return to base before the mission is completed I believe there is only one shin in our group thiit has any more missions than Jughaid "We had quite a lot of St. El mo's fire last mission. SI Klmos fire is static electricity. Several times the prop tips Inok-.-d like neon signs. One time npht aft.i we loft the target it war. h"PP'n! around the Inside of the ship At the same time it was jumping about a foot 6ff my prop didn't tell you about the time wr vre struck by lightning. ,ml' ur,y)I will; tell you a!! about it. I really expected it ags'.n when we were on this last mission." ' Vaaa 94 WtlUwt Ceeefiei ' 1 . LA GRANDE, OREGON SATURDAY EVENING, JULyTi, Little lmsbUinidlirCin)feir Homes in Area Still Emptied PORTLAND, July 21 (UP) Rain that beiran falling to day mitigated the peril trom. forest tires to two western Oregon communities fr o m which many residents had fled. In Washington county, the Wil son river fire had covered 46,000 acres more than 70 square miles before the rain slow-ad its fiery march, although on one salient the flames continued to advance between the communi ties of Cochran and Glenwood. Fires Merge State highway officials report ed rain falling over the Pacific coast with good prospects for a drenching of the stricken area. Earlier, two fires along the Wilson and the Salmonberry rivers had merged to Imperial Glenwood and the nearby Con solidated timber company's saw mill and community of 60 homes. From both of these places many had moved out on army trucks and private vehicles. " In addition to the partial eva cuation Consolidated camp fami lies, a group of 22 boys and girls, most of them from Portland, wore forced to evacuate the Highbanks play school summer camp in the woods near Glenwood, in face of the steadily, advancing flames. Out of Control In Polk county, residents of the pioneer district prepared to evacuate their homes as a forest fire again flared out of control and gained on all sides. The city of Dallas was darken ed by billowing clouds of smoke most of the day Friday as flames were reported only 12 miles from the city. Portlander Awaits Sentence; Started House in War Time PORTLAND, July 21 (UP) Edward L. Kropp, Portland busi ness man, awaited sentence today in federal court afler pleading guilty to violating WPB order L-41 in starting the construction of an $8,000 home without mak- ng application lo the war pro duction board. United States District Judge James Alg.-r Fee referred the case to the chiel probation of ficer for pie-sentence investiga tion and committed Kropp to the county jail until sentence could be passed. Maximum penalty for the of fense is $10,000 fine and one year jail. Judge Fee said earlier he was cognizant of extenuating circum stances, but inasmuch as Kropp had been an employe of the war production board when the of fense was committed, he believed that a severe sentence is called for. Early Riser Gets the Bird, Ornithology Classes Taught by Dr. Quaintance Find Now that his ornithology (bud study) classes have been com pleted, Dr. Charles Quaintance can gel some sleep. Dr. Quain tance, associate professor of bio logy at the Eastern Orogon col lege of education, has been aris ing al 5:30 a.m. and sometimes pi 5 a.m. to conduct the field trips taken by his class and it's hard on the nervous system Dr. Quaintance, however, is not complaining. It's the early user that gets the bird, as provi n by the unusual birds to?n by the class on their field trips. Vari ous habitats were visited, such as Dal canyon, Riverside paik. the Kate Henley bird nmetua. y along the Grande Ronde river, the ce.nelery, the campus, Hot Lake, the airfiort, and around the viaduct. eVv-ar!' studvnU alio v.e.nt to Wallowa lake on various occasions, Dr. Qualt tande said. To Trine i Not all members of the class were students in the college, al-1 j though the course is part of the iVdOOSIlffi) - , "THEY BROUGHT IT ON THEMSELVES" A tour of the German capital, now a specter city, strewn with rubble and studded with skeleton b uildings, brought out the comment from President Harry S. Truman "This terrible thing they brough t on themselves." Photo showi center of Berlin. 5 . Big Three Close To Decision in Discussions POTSDAMJ July 21 (UP) The big three has reached the decision-making phase of their discus shins, it was bclievcdtoday.- That was indicated by state ments from the American delega tion that the work of the confer ence is going forward steadily and that "much serious business has been done." The Americans revealed Presi dent Truman, Premier Stalin and Prime Minister Churchill have met an average of three hours daily. Long Hours The three foreign secretaries have been meeting even longer hours while the numerous sub committees and committees of experts have worked into the late evening hours preparing ma terial for the nig three. The material is screened by the experts, submitted lo the for eign secretaries and then passed on to the big three in final form for decisions. Thus, it was believed, the pre liminary sifting of a myriad of problems virtually has been com pleted leaving the big three free to make thir deisions. Inspect Borlin Members of the president's party arc spending a good deal of time inspecting Berlin. Edward W. Pauley, chairman of the American section of the repara tions commission meeting in Mos cow, said "after seeing Berlin I didn't feel so bad about London." Pauley was amazed that al though on a national basis only ?0 per cent of German industry was destroyed Berlin itself has been largely obliterated. regular summer school schedule. Several boy scouts, working for merit badges in bird study, also went along on the field trips. An average of two field trips each week was taken, with one day each week devoted lo reports from the verious members of the class. The course lasted five weeks, with the last trip being taken Monday, to Hot L a k e. Nephi Comb, bird imitator, ac companied the clajs, giving some excellent examples of his bird whistles. Find Radniurt Several unusual birds wcr? ob seived by the class, among them th American redstart, a warb ler discovered by Dr. Quaintance a (ew, yeais iif i. While it Is an cjnlcrn bird, il has apparently takm a liking to the 'ftivcrajdc park district. Evening grostarakeJ very vivi- cioui :birds, were seen earlier in the season, also in the Riverside park district, Quaintance said, and sever! green-tailed towheek twtt 1945 -".'-.'-'v -f sf, Duke, Duchess To Return to England WASHINGTON, July 21 (UP) The Duke of Windsor and the woman for whom he gave up the British crown arc going back to England together for the first time since their marriage in 1937. British officials said torfay the Duke and Duchess will visit Lon don within a few weeks. The Duke has been back occasionally since he. abdicated but the duch ess, the former Wallis Warfield Simpson of Baltimore, has not returned to England since their famous exile began. While in Britain, tho famous couple probably will stay at the duke's Surrey country place, Fort Belvedere. Regional OPA Unconvinced By Anderson Move PORTLAND, July 21 (UP) The regional OPA remained adamant today on the slate-wide lamb point controversy as news came from Washington Secretary of Agriculture Clinton P. Ander son hud requested removal of points on Oregon "soft liimb," giving promise of a lamb-producer victory over the OPA. McDannel Blown, district OI'A head, said Oregonions long have enjoyed more meat than has Ihc rest of the nation and he didn't think the points should be re moved to give local people more meat than the rest of the coun try, and especially when the lumy needs meat. Meanwhile, E. L. Peterson, slate director of agriculture, ex pressed satisfaction with Ander son s recommendation, saving "That's what wp've been asking for." were seen district. the Deal canyon Several mourning dove nests were scon at the bird sanctuary, and black terns and nvocets were yeen at Hot Lake. The avocct is a beautiful shorebird related to tin sandpiper, only more dramatic-appearing. Ti," class also has seen thou sands of swallows, which hav just finished nesting colonies t.f roui.'h-winged swallows, cliff swaJlows, and barn swallows. ApereTes One of the highlight! of tho season as the glimpsing of the long-tail-'d chat, which whistles like a human, in the foothill can yon" by Hot Lake. o And while it wasn't a require ment of the court)', Dr. Quiiin taneu said, several of his stm dents, un their own initiative, In augurated the serving of coffee into tho early morning course. Dr. Quaintance, who appreciates initiative (and also coffee) ap proved of the idea. artft;" ijw 4fti ii wf v.- . t r in VOffi'' -- 7 irK.vV r i -,mS i i Kir Now - . ) Nuernberg Will Be Scene of War Trials LONDON, July 21 (UP) Trials of European war criminals will be held in Nuernberg, the nazl shrine city where the German fascist party met each year to lay the foundation for war, It was revealed today. American, British and French delegations of the war Crimes commission, which selected the site, left by plane today for Nuernberg to examine courtroom and other facilities. Decision to try tho major Eu ropean war criminals in the pic turesque German city where the nazis held their annual party congresses was a gesture of re tribution. Further details of po pulations for the trials are ex pected when tho delegations re turn to London tomorrow. The absence of Russian dele gates from the party flying to Nuernberg caused surprise. The only explanation was "circum stances had arisen unexpectedly which made it impossible" for the Russians to make the trip. The delegation's visit to Nuern berg prompted speculation the dale for the first of the trials may he announced soon. One of the big-name prisoners may be me msi in nice tno court. There was some speculation it might be Ueichsmnishiil Hermann Goering. Many Holes Dua For street Markers Horace J. Nelson, chairman of tnc L,ions club commitUio on street murker placement, today extended the thanks of the club lo those in the area of the city WII.-IL- niaiKers are being planted who have completed digging the holes for the markers at the street corncin In front of their property and urged others to complete wiL-ir uigging. .The city has marked the sites "f the holes with stakes and the stakes, when the holes arc dug, should be saved so Ihcy may be used over again. Reason householders are urged to dig the holes for the street marker posts is that the city just simply doesn't have enough man power available to do the work. The first group of markers will be put in some time next week, Nelson said. ISO Attend Vocal Recital at College More than ISO I Grande mu sic lovers lait flight hear Flor ence Coardy, contralto, premnt a well balanced and interesting i-ccital at the colleg auditorium. She was presented by the East ern Oregon college of education anil asaisltcl by Marjorie Scobert Wilson, pianist. Oo O Miss CoaMjosang a program which included both classical and modern numbers. Numerous en cores testified to the pleasure which the audience received from her singing. Mrs. Wilson also was well received. A Community Newspaper For Every Member of the Family FIVE CENTS 300 Acre Area in Flames U. S. forest service expects to have the forest f ire in Whitman national forest on the Little Minam river under control by late evening, Char les Arlington, fire control as sistant, aMhe headquarters in Baker said today. Seventy men. including ran-'' gen, brush crews and firemen, thus far have confined thai blase to the 300 acres of the' original sits, which is at ihe mouth of Big Canyon creek on the Utile Minam. The fire Is about two miles west oi the' Horse ranch, a dud ranch, and . iha ranch is the only habita tion nearby.. With tha wind in iha souths the danger to iha ranch ia remote. The lire is about five miles southeast oi'' Point Prominence, Arlington said. Most of the timber involved is lodgepole pine and upper slope types, Including fir, according to" Arlington. The fire broke out at 4:30 p.m. yesterday and by 7 p.m. had covered 300 acres. I Fire trenches have controlled the fire on all sides, and the work' has been entirely done by hand since the terrain is too rugged for use of machinery, such as bulldozers. Supplies with which lo fight iha blaae have lo be packed in ; from Moss Springs, forest ser vice supply center,. , which U seven miles from the scene oi the blase. As soon as the blasa -is brought under control, Ihe crews will Iraverse lhe area to put out the "last spark" of blase. Rain, which is forecast for this part of lhe state Sunday, would be most welcome in con troling the blase, Arlington de clared. Rain raises ihe humid ity to the point where the fires smother down. The blaze was discovered by lookouts at Mt. Emily, High ridge, Goodman ridge and Flat lake in this district, Floyd McLin, dis patcher here, said; and was ob served at Bone Springs in the Walla Walla district. Readincs guve tho location of the blaze. Strike Cripples Eugene Plywood Manufacturer EUGENE, July 21 (UP)The Springfield Plywood corporation plant was crippled today by a strike of AFL workers who walked out over a jurisdictional dispute, curtailing work on nine million board feet of unfilled government orders. An earlier report that a group of CIO workers at the plant quit their jobs was denied by labor officials, who said the men re ported to work but were turned back by the company. The national labor relations board granted the AFL a strike vote, which was held July 9, but refused a bargaining election in which tho AFL would have sought to represent the workers. There was no production today or Friday at the plant as only 80 men reported in warehouse and shipping departments of the nor mal shift of 140. National war labor board chairman John D. Galcy tele graphed the company and men Thursday that the west coast . lumber commission had directed continuation of work. The com pany replied it would comply to the limit of its ability, and CIO officials said they would try to bring in workers from other ply wood plaats. Pfc Howard Bowman Of North Powder Reported Wounded Army war casualties announced today included Pfc. Howard D. Bowman, son of Mrs. Helen Bow man, roulo 1, Box 8, North Pow der, who was wounded while In ihe Pacific regions. No details were given with the announce ment of Bowman's injury.