Navy Man Home On Furlough
' "GUNNER JONES"
VISITS FAMILY
In Southwest Pacific T/i Yrs.
For two and a half years Dallas H. Jones roamed the
Southwest Pacific, undergoing extensive training and then
■$)i fighting the Japs, before he found time to visit his parents
and brothers and sisters on Route 2, Halifax. He came
aft>of(vhf Vi Am n frAm fha GaI awi An o ■*»-- __ _
via San Diego and dropped in on
the family unexpectedly, and dur
ing the coldest weather of the
W year. His folks were surprised at
his unannounced visit, and only
the warmth of their welcome kept
him from freezing in the 10 above
weather, he said.
^ Gunner Jones, who’s father is
I. E. Jones, formerly of Duplin
County, has two brothers in the
armed, services and another broth
er registered in the 18-19 year old
draft. In addition he has two
m more brothers and seven sisters.
His brother Talmage, is now
somewhere in North Africa, and
another brother, Osborne, is in
Naval Air School, after serving
for a period as a gunner on a
£) merchant vessel in the Atlantic.
The younger brother, Carl, who has
recently registered, is a senior in
the Aurelian Springs School, where
Dallas and Osborne both attended
before going into the service of
. their country.
’ Dallas, who carries a rating of
AOM lc and serves as a gunner
and bombardier in a Catalina Fly
ing Boat under this rating, was
awakened ,at Pearl Harbor on the
morning of December 7, 1941, by
the chattering of Japanese machine
guns as the Jap aviators strafed
the hangar barracks in which he
was sleeping. Although 30 of his
comrades were killed in. the bar
racks, he went unscathed in that
f first attack and has held that luck
throughout his fighting experience.
Jones says that he and all the
others thought they had been
awakened by their own planes on
maneuvers and did not realize
that they were being attacked
until they saw men begin to fall
dead or wounded.
He rushed from the barracks (in
side the hangar of their huge pa
trol boats), he said, and grabbed a
machine gun from a plane and be
gan to blast away at the attack
ing enemy. Whether he hit one
he does not know, but cannot see
why he did not as they were in
close range and he sprayed plenty
of lead in their direction.
It was while he was using the
gun to help drive off the planes
that he had his narrowest escape
during the entire war. He had
stationed himself in an open space
away from the buildings and planes
to keep from being in line of fire
and to have a better view of the
oncoming planes. After the first
wave of strafing planes passed
over, bombing planes filled the
air with all sorts of bombs and in
cendiaries. A bomber got one
direct hit on the barracks in which
he had been sleeping and then he
found himself flattened by an ex
plosion near at hand. He picked
himself up and examined himself
for wounds but found none. There,
fifty feet away from him and his
gun was a giant hole, the crater
of a heavy bomb. As luck had
it, the bomb had hit in soft sand,
buried itself, and the surrounding
sand had received and absorbed
the impact of the shrapnel. The
concussion had flattened him.
Following the attack, Jones in
spected three trees through which
he had been shooting at the Japs.
They were riddled and some were
shot clean off.
He said that the first salvo of
bombs the Japs dropped fell into
the bay and he and his comrades
thought for a minute that it was
not going to be so bad after all.
But the next salvo hit dead center,
he said.
Scared? Jones said that while
he was shooting, he felt no fear
whatsoever. Afterwards he was
afraid. But the main cause of the
fear of all was the fear of an in
vasion by land. He said he fully
expected to see the Japs come up
and start disembarking on the
shore at any time. What with all
their planes shot to pieces, this
would have been a serious situa
tion, he said.
Following the attack at Pearl
Harbor, Jones remained doing pa
trol duty in his big Catalina (PBY)
After that period, he was sent to
the Solomons area where he stayed
until about the first of the year,
1943.
His duties there consisted of pa
trolling the far reaches of the Pa
cific around the Solomons and
carrying wounded out of Guadal
canal. Asked if he ran into any
of the other boys from the county,
he said that he did not know. He
might have seen them but they
didn’t know where he was from
and he didn’t know where they
were from.
It was during the months of
September and October, 1942, that
he. and his crew spotted and tor
pedoed two ,Jap cruisers, which
were listed as damaged and pro
bably sunk. Jones received a ci
tation from Admiral Halsley for
his part in these two actions.
It was Jones’ squadron of patrol
planes that sdouted the Jap task
force which the Americans sur
prised and licked so decisively off
Steward Island near Guadalcanal
on the night of October 12.
Jones says the most unpleasant
experiences he has had were the
times when his plane had to go
in close to an enemy ship in order
to aet the identification through
a skyful of ack-ack. He says
that is sort of a helpless feeling,
the crew not being able to shoot
back.
Jones has come through several
engagements with Japanese patrol
planes but has not tangled with
any of the famed "Zeros” thus
far. He said that his crew had
not shot down any of the enemj
planes but had silenced their gun
ners on different occasions.
Jones would not reveal distances
flown on the patrols nor the bases
and islands from which they op
erated but said that their usua!
patrol was for 13 hours, giving
the reporter some indication ol
the miles covered.
Bringing back a vast amount oi
information concerning the Solo
mons and the natives there, th«
young Navy man entertained the
senior class at Aurelian Springs
school on Monday of this week
with some accounts of the Poly
nesians and the’Melanesians found
in that part of the world.
Young Jones is now enjoying a
30-day leave, his first since he
joined the Navy in 1940. He will
report back to the west coast some
time during the first days of
March.
Another Colored
Woman Of County
Joins The WAAC’s
Clara Mills, Halifax County Ne
gress, who formerly lived on R.
F. D. 1, Box 33, Roanoke Rapids,
was officially enrolled on February
25th as a member of the Woman’s
Auxiliary Army Corps. She is one
of several colored women of the
county to recently join the
WAAC’s, thus releasing another
soldier for active combat duty.
More enlistments for the WAACs
are being sought among colored
women. Those interested in join
ing may obtain full details from
Lt. Mary J. Norton, 3rd Officer,
WAAC, Headquarters Armed For
ces Induction Station, WAAC En
rollment Station, Fort Bragg.
Lt. W. B. Johnson
To Report To
Naval Reserve
Lt. Wiliam D. Johnson of Wel
don received a commission with
the Naval Reserve and has receiv
ed his orders to report to Fort
Schuyler, New York for advance
training.
Lt. Johnson is the grandson of
Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Trueblood
of Weldon. He holds a degree In
electrical engineering having grad
uated from North Carolina State
College.
ENTERTAIN JOINTLY
Mesdames Lewis Cooke, Roy
Smith and Maude Howenton of
Enfield were hostesses to a num
ber of friends at a Friendly Circle
meeting in the home of Mrs. Cooke
on Thursday evening, Feb. 25th,
with twenty-two members and two
visitors present. Mrs. Alton Gos
sett had charge of the business
program, with Mrs. Ed Batchelor
Miss Mary Sykes and Mrs. R. O.
Hux, assisting in the routine. Dur
ing the evening, Mrs. C. O. Strick
land led the entertainment. Re
freshments were served to the
members who were present.
* THE OLD JUDGE SAYS... <3^
i 11 I
"Our men in the service in this Wat haVS
pretty definite ide§sJbou$ what they're
fighting for and tne way they Want to find
our country when they come back...don’t
^ you think so, Judge?” -
“I certainijnd©, George. Just a week or so
ago I was reading in a national magazine the
results of a poll taken among our soldiers.
Each man was given a questionnaire con
taining twenty-five ‘assignments’ for the
0 folks at home. He was asked to check the
* first five in order of importance to him. ->
• re
"Out of thousands of replies the first ^
‘assignment*’ tfl lEe folks back borne was
‘MSS5 Sfire I’ll have a job in my chosen
field of work when I get back’. Number 5 wa^
‘Make sure that Prohibition isn’t put oveb
on us again,’ /
“When the men in the last war came
home and found prohibition had been put
over on them behind their backs they were
Bore as boils. You can See from what I
just told you how they feel about it this
time, too.”
Conference of Alcoholic Beeerote Industries, Im.
PEOPLES
Entire Week of
MARCH
I — ■ ■■■ .— -. ...... .B
i=^~-..:.
The HALL OF FAME PICTURE)
Another Triumphl
from M-G-M,
the producers of)
“Mrs. Miniver”!
9W A love drama packed ^1|
W with suspense and 1
1 excitement! The pie* |
r° lure throbs with J
[ every thrilling heart* jM
\ beat of James Hil-' ^
'V, ton’s famed J GREER "
Directed by Produced by
MervynLeROY* Sidney FRANKLIN,
PHILIP DORN • susan PETERS
HENRY REGINALD BRAMWELL
TRAVERS • OWEN • FLETCHER
rx Screen Play by Claudine West, George Froeeohel and: »
Cu \ Arthur Wimperis
Based Upon the Novel by James Hilton 4
1^. A MERVYN LeRQY PRODUCTION! j
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