Page Four
CLOUDBUSTER
Saturday, October 3, 1942
CLOUDBUSTER
Vol. 1—No. 3
Saturday, Oct. 3, 1942
Published weekly at the U. S. Navy Pre-Flight School,
Chapel Hill, N. C.
Under supervision of the Public Relations Office.
COMDR. O. 0. Kessing, USN, Commanding Officer
Lieut. Comdr. John P. Graff, USN (Ret.), Executive Officer
Lieut, (jg) Kidd Brewer, USNR, Public Relations Officer
Lieut, (jg) Dan Partner, USNR, Sports
Ensign Leonard Eiserer, USNR, Editor
Opinions and views expressed in this newspaper are those of staff mem
bers or of individual writers, and are not to be considered as those of the
United States Navy.
Articles and features may be reprinted without permission, pro
vided proper credit is given.
Mr. Bard Speaks His Mind
Few speeches by Administration leaders in recent weeks have
caused as much comment in the press as the “we are losing the
war” address given by Assistant Secretary of the Navy Ralph A.
Bard, before the international convention of the Industrial Union
of Marine and Shipbuilding Workers in New York last week.
It was a sobering speech, and powerful, with Mr. Bard mincing
no words in an effort to jolt comforting optimism that tends to
grow with each day that the Russians hold Stalingrad, or the
Allied troops advance a few miles against the Japs in New
Guinea.
In many press dispatches, the Bard speech appeared to be
merely another warning that “we could lose the war.” Perusal
of the complete text, however, indicates that Mr. Bard went much
farther than that.
Choice quotations are well worth pondering by all Americans:
“Some months ago, after the first stunning shock of Pearl
Harbor,” Mr. Bard said, “we Americans needed a shot in the arm
to restore our ego. That ego, the product of the belief that we
were the peculiar children of fortune, expressed itself in the vague
assumption that we could lick any of our enemies in 60 days,
without skipping a full meal with dessert, or missing a Sunday
drive in the country.
“After the unhappy realization that we had been cruelly out
smarted in the first inning of the war, in the peace and quiet of
a Sunday morning, our own tradition of asstiming that everything
about us was the biggest and the best furnished us with a com-
Ijensatory reflex. We fell into the bumptious practice of flexing
imaginary muscles, and loudly proclaimed that as soon as we had
completed an intensive course at the gymnasium, we would get
even with our enemies. . . .
“President Roosevelt one fine day reminded the country that
it was suffering from too much complacent optimism, and then
we went in for pessimism. . . . But I suspect that our native
conceit has accepted this line of thought as traditional advertising
technique, the kind of message which sells hair tonic and cure-alls,
full of terror in the first part of the ad, and reassurance in the
windup—the ads which say you are most certainly damned, but
our product can save you.
“It seems to me that our pre-Pearl Harbor egotism had such
momentum that it is with us today in distorted and dangerous
form. We go around saying ‘We can lose the war, but—Every
time one of us says we can lose the war, we think of this as pure
rhetoric, part of the old pep talk. The assumption is, of course we
can’t lose the war but scare ’em a little and then in the windup
of the talk give ’em the build up about our great American heri
tage of freedom and whatnot, and how our courage and our self-
sacrifice will bring us victory over the forces of evil . . . and then
there will be a people’s peace, and amity and justice will pervade
the earth, forever after.
“How about, for a change, just saying that we are losing the
war, period. And realizing that we damn well mean it, period.
“Such realism, no doubt, would be a heart-racking plunge into
cold water, but it would probably give us an idea of what we are
up against. . . .
“This painful technique of realistic self-analysis might even
remind us that freedom, like any other virtue, does not exist in a
vacuum. It must be worked and practiced to exist at all. And
like any other virtue, it imposes upon those who would have it
the unpleasant tasks of discipline and sacrifice. A materialistic
people do not learn these tasks by reading posters or listening to
pep talks, any more than you can leam to play the violin by the
same methods. ...
“I think our insufferable and materialistic pride has rendered
us incapable of realizing fully that in German Naziism we are
fighting a monstrous thing that started out as a God-man complex,
and now is fighting to the death, whether that God-man complex
still exists or not, in the desperate realization that Naziism and
the deluded fools who are backing Naziism cannot survive if they
do not win and exterminate their victims.
“We would find it hard to follow through the thought that the
By Lieut. Eric H. Arendt
Chaplain Corps, USN
Henry Van Dyke (1852-1933) was
an American clergyman and author
who lived a long and important life.
But no more important piece of writ
ing came from this distinguished man’s
pen than these six brief lines:
Four things a man must learn to do
If he would make his record true:
To think without confusion clearly;
To love his fellow men sincerely;
To act from honest motives purely;
To trust in God and Heav’n securely.
At the close of a full day it is im
portant that the mind as well as the
body attains a state of relaxation.
Some of us do this through formal
prayers. Some of us are afraid, of the
term “prayer.” Some are a little hesi
tant about calling ourselves “reli
gious.” Let those of us in this latter
category take comfort in the very sim
ple definition that a prayer is but a
wish turned God-ward. There certain
ly cannot be here anyone who would
deny God, The very sacrifices which
we are making and will continue to
make for our Cause are proof enough.
Concern for our fellow-men, honor
and trust in God are the traditional
emphases of our Navy and our Coun
try. These are each dependent upon
the other. Being a part, as we are, of
a program designed to retain these
ideals, it certainly behooves us to rec
ognize their importance to the life and
happiness of our Nation.
What, then, is our responsibility?
Read Henry Van Dyke’s six lines once
again. Take an inventory of yourself
while you read them. Do you not see
now why it is so important to relax
one’s mind? To all of you a prayer is
suggested even if in its simplest form.
Try it at the close of a busy day. You
will find yourself refreshed mentally,
just as your body is physically re
freshed after a good night’s rest, and
you will find yourself prepared to
meet ANY challenge on the morrow.
Sunday
Divine Services
Catholic
Masses 0615, 1000*, 1045
Confessions, Friday, 1830-1930
“Service at Forest Theatre,
weather permitting. All oth
ers Gerrard Hall.
Jewish
1000, Hillel House
General Protestant
1000, Memorial Hall
little Japs, for whom we have al
ways entertained a rather fond
contempt, consider us foppish be
cause we equip our aviators with
parachutes. It is a degrading
thought to these our enemies
that there should be any alter
native to defeat save violent
death. . . .
“We are still flexing our imag
inary muscles and shouting:
‘Wait till I catch that lug who
hit me when I wasn’t looking!’
“We had better stop for a
moment and look in a flat mirror
to see if our gym trunks fit us.
“At this point I should shift
gears and wind up with predic
tions of a glorious finish of our
uphill fight.
“But I’m not going to do it.
“We are losing this war,
period. And we should damn
well understand it, period.”
—Buy War Bonds—
Cadet Finds Athletic Head
To Be * Quite a Guy^
By Cadet James G. Butler
“Quite a guy,” is the phrase so often
informally applied to Harvey Harman,
the Director of Athletics. You have
often seen him, built on Gargantuan
proportions, sporting a lieutenant com
mander’s uniform around the campus.
Seen from a distance you might won
der what use the Navy had for big
farmers from the Iowa corn belt. But
once you meet him you soon find that
he is as sharp as a needle ’neath that
rural camouflage.
H. H. comes from Selinsgrove, Pa.,
the son of a Lutheran minister, who
was a former football player at Sus
quehanna. His brother followed his
father’s footsteps both in the ministry
and football at his dad’s college. Har
vey however had different ideas—his
big ambition was to play football under
Pop Warner.
At that time Pop was at the Uni
versity of Pittsburgh, so it was to Pitt
that Harman went. And he did play
football; to put it mildly, he was ter
rific.
Starting in at end as a freshman,
Harman shifted to the tackle spot
when the varsity tackle broke his
ankle. After moving there, neither hell
nor high water nor the opposing team
could move him out, so he stayed there
for four years. This feat won him
All-American honors for two seasons.
Summed up, his college career was
but a precursor of his later life, both
crowned with success. In school he was
active in that most shady of all Ameri
can pastimes—college politics. The
fact that he was president of his junior
and senior class, and president of the
YMCA demonstrates his ability in this
field. In addition he won his varsity
letter in track by heaving the shot and
discus. And all this time he was a con
sistent member of the Dean’s list.
H. H. graduated from Pitt in 1922
with a B.A. and continued to woo his
first love, football. He accepted a
coaching job at Haverford until 1929.
Successively followed jobs at Sewanee,
Pennsylvania, and finally Rutgers, hav-
Lt. Comdr. Harman
ing brilliant results in football at all
three. In 1936 he probably had his best
team when his boys were champs of
the East and fifth in the country. At
Rutgers he lead the team from the
banks of the old Raritan to its first
triumph over Princeton.
Now Lieut. Comdr. Harman believes
he has the most fascinating job of his
career, as director of athletics in the
Pre-Flight School. This job is the ful
fillment of an ambition prompted by
the realization that Americans were
getting soft, and the desire to do some
thing about it.
He felt that after the first World
War and the repressions of prohibition,
the majority of Americans looked
down their long thin noses at sweat
and organized physical development.
After all wasn’t sport merely for en
joyment? Of what use was good bodily
development? Of course we played
golf, and for the more strenuous ten
nis constituted a good workout. As
for physical contact and those hulking
brutes that participated therein—
See HARMAN, page 8
Pre-Flight
STATIONERY—JEWELRY
Ledbetter-Pickard
Eat
at
CAROLINA COFFEE SHOP
— You Are Always Welcome—
Jefferson Standard Life Insurance Company
GREENSBORO, N. C.
J. W. UMSTEAD, JR., Manager
136 Franklin Street—Phone 9876
We Will Be Glad to Serve You in Connection
With Your Insurance Program
FOWLER’S FOOD STORE
Self Service
—ALSO—
Delivery i
PHONES 6611
9831