Page Four
CLOUDBUSTER
Saturday, March 18, 1944
Coaches of Winning Teams
ALL SMILES, and they’ve a right to be. Pictured above are coaches
of the winning teams in the recently completed Winter Sports Pro
gram. Left to right, they are Lt. (jg) E, D. Forker, USNR, coach of
the Wildcat wrestling team; Ensign W. H. Muir, USNR, Buccaneer
basketball coach; Ensign C. E. Wilkinson, USNR, Buccaneer boxing
coach; Lt. (jg) R. L. Barrick, USNR, Mustang gym coach; Lt. (jg)
R. W. Paugh, USNR, Mustang swimming coach, and Lt. (jg) F. E.
Wiand, USNR, who coached the Vindicator soccer team.
... SooA Review...
INVASION
(Continued from page one)
signs and portents which the Ger
mans can weigh.
The nature of our air operations
affords the enemy one means of
determining the imminence of a
, great invasion. Before an attack
ing force of fifty divisions, for ex
ample, could be sent across the
channel there would be a prelim
inary attack on tactical objectives
along the coast. When the RAF
and the AAF turn their power
from strategic attacks, that is the
bombardment of industrial objec
tives, to tactical support of
ground troops by preliminary
blasting of gun emplacements,
supply dumps, and so on, then in
vasion is near at hand. At the
present time the Anglo-American
air fleets are hammering at stra
tegic objectives. This is not the
time to enter the argument of stra
tegic versus tactical bombing;
however, in some quarters the
question has been asked whether
the organization that has been
perfected for the strategic bom
bardment of Europe will be flex
ible enough to provide the air sup
port for our ground forces. There
is reason to believe on the evidence
of the Italian campaign that our
tactical use of air power has not
equaled the expectations of avia
tion enthusiasts.
The signal for the invasion will
be recognized by both sides when
the allies master the German
fighter aviation. From a general
bombardment of German industry,
the allies have turned to the bom
bardment of airplane factories.
Since the Germans use bombers
(JU 88 and DO 217) and fighters
indiscriminately as defense air
craft, not only fighter plane pro
duction centers but all aircraft in
dustries must be attacked. To de
stroy finished aircraft heavy as
saults have been mounted against
places with such an industrial and
a political value that a strong de
fense is required. Berlin of course
comes in this category. The situa
tion is much the same as it was in
1940: the prize was not London
but the fighter strength of the
RAF. When the British gave up
their city to air demolition rather
than sacrifice their planes, the
Germans had to reconsider the
planned invasion of England. The
Germans are now being forced to
make the same decision, either
Berlin or the Luftwaffe. It is one
of the ironies of the war for Goer-
ing, who boasted that iio bombs
would fall on Germany, that he
can have neither Berlin nor the
Luftwaffe.
To All Hands: an Amphibious
Adventure, John Mason Brown,
Lieut., USNR, Whittlesey House,
New York, 1943, 236 pp., $2.75.
Nine out of ten men aboard most
v/arships cannot see what is going
on topside. Moreover, in the course
of a mission the scuttle-butt that
races through the lower decks
iriust, for reasons of security, lack
accurate fact on numbers and
names of ships, course, speed, and
destination. Yet in this war, and
in amphibious attack on hostile
beaches especially, the lowliest
hand must know what is going on,
and fully understand the mission
of the force as a whole.
Rear Admiral Alan G. Kirk, in
command of a large U. S. Atlantic
Fleet Amphibious Force bound for
a Sicilian beach, concluding that
our “success in combat comes of
ten from brilliant individual
initiative,” and so as to make full
use of the “resourcefulness of the
individual sailor or soldier,” di
rected his staff officer Lieut. Brown
to present daily broadcasts to the
1500 men aboard the flagship, in
convoy on the way over, during
rendezvous in a North African
port, in the fierce battle at Scog-
litti, and on the way home.
Lieut. Brown is excellently
equipped to interpret this adven
ture to the mixed Army and Navy
personnel aboard, most of them
proceeding into their first battle,
and to us. Recently a civilian him
self and privately, as he confesses,
one of the least bellicose, he judges
truly what men new in uniform
want to know and how they feel.
His long experience as theatre
critic in New York has taught him
a sure and immediate response to
action and emotion as presented
on the stage; writing a daily re
view and some nine books on the
theatre leads him to the right word
and turn of phrase; and previous
experience as lecturer and broad
caster has taught him what words
carry most meaning over the air.
More than 80 on-the-spot photo
graphs, sketches, and paintings
help his words to bring the ex
perience to us who were not there.
Exciting episodes were few as the
huge convoy sprawled slowly
across the Atlantic to an unan
nounced destination in Europe, ex
cept as the isolation of the sea
magnified trivial events into good
broadcasting material. Danger
was ever-present, however, and
alarums and excursions were
many.
The interval gave Lieut. Brown
time to create the feeling of being
just one unit of a huge armada
which spread over the sea and out
of sight. The tempo of reporting
accelerates as Scoglitti nears, and
the battle of the beach comes
through with controlled but throb
bing excitement.
To All Hands ought to survive
longer than most war books. The
mission itself has a natural be
ginning, mounting excitement, a
brief period of intense excitement,
and a quiet conclusion. The book
has a pattern, not unlike that of a
large-scale play, which should
m.ake good reading long after this
particular mission is forgotten in
the many missions that brought
us victory.
—F.E.B.
Former CO Here
Is Naval Chief
At Bougainville
(The following article was writ
ten by Tech. Sgt. Theodore C.
Link, a Marine Corps combat cor
respondent and distributed by the
Associated Press. It concerns the
work of Captain O. O. Kessing,
USN, the first commanding of
ficer of this Pre-Flight School,
who now is in command of the
Naval Base at Bougainville.)
Bougainville — (Delayed) —
Transformation of a dismal jungle
and swamp area into a huge and
impressive air force stronghold
has been a successful venture in
the three months since combat
troops of the Third Marine Divi
sion swarmed ashore from trans
ports on Nov. 1, 1943.
When this correspondent left
the island a few days after Christ
mas, pursuit planes were operat
ing out of one fighter strip, and a
few bombers had made emergency
landings.
On my return, the changes
found were amazing. Hundreds
of airplanes dotted the air field
area. The Piva bomber strip and
its dispersal areas, which one
could walk around in a short time
only a month previously, had be
come so extensive a jeep was need
ed even to get around to parts of it.
Roads had been extended so that
one ran right to the top of steep
“Hellzapoppin’ Ridge” and to
front line positions along the La-
ruma and Torokina Rivers. Sup
ply dumps covered acres.
The naval base is a bustling
place, as large in population as a
small American city. The com
mander is Capt. 0. 0. Kessing,
USN, a graduate of Annapolis in
1914, and a native of Greensburg,
Indiana. (Captain Kessing’s fam
ily lives here in Chapel Hill.)
Comdi'. Earle H. Kincaid, USN,
also an Annapolis graduate, is
Capt. Kessing’s Executive Officer.
Forces on Bougainville still
undergo the nervous stress of fre
quent Jap air bombings, but the
raids lately seemed to this observer
to lack the intensity of previous
ones. In three months there have
been 215 air raid alarms.
When the writer left at Christ
mas, Bougainville life was still
confined to foxholes from sundown
on. Now there are lights in the
camps, and picture shows operate
nightly.
War bonds can prevent bombs-
Do your share.