Rapid City Journal from Rapid City, South Dakota • 2

THUN UKKBl KlJ. NOVEMBER 2, 1943 PAGE TWO near home. Then they shot a red flare and waited for a green Bare from our tower. A minute later came the most beautiful light that crew has ever seen. Five more minutes and they never would have PERFECT jpm Uv 1 1 1 1 1 It IB I It I) Published every Tuesday at Rapid City, South Dakota, by The Rapid City Journal.

turret gunner, said "Well, we had a little French boy named Johnny whom we picked up near Oran. His mother and dad had been killed in a bombing and his brother was up at the front with the engineers. When I first saw him he was thin and badly spoiled by the boys. When I left he had grown a couple of inches and gained quite a few pounds. He was 15 years old.

He am Neither the Umted States government, any oi its agencies, nor the Rapid City Army Air Base assumes any financial, editorial or administrative obligations incident to the publication ot this paper News matter in The Thundcrbird has been released by the public relations office and is available for general publicatioa IDA'S KID SISTER made it. "Their weary, crippled plane had flown four and a half hours on one pair of motors. Any pilot will tell you it's impossible. "And here is the climax. During that agonizing homeward crawl, this one crippled plane shut down the fantastic total of six German fighters.

Officially confirmed!" lived with one of the crew chiefs and he and the sergeant worked on the ship together. As I say, he was spoiled, but after the crew chief took him in hand he became a WAR NEWS (From Page One) mighty nice kid. "He got paid each month. The squadron chipped in, and by gol- ly, he drew more pay than I did. A certain amount of it was set aside for him in war bonds.

Proceedings were started to adopt him and bring him back to the states, Johnny used to want me to teach him to box so he could box in one of the shows in town." WAC QUACKS By Sgt. Allen McClelland The other evening Sgt. Dupuy nW KgBf defeatism is spreading through Hitler's homeland and that it is impossible to exaggerate the disastrous effect of allied bombings on German morale. Swedish sources say the Germans are evacuating industrial plants from Norway to the Reich. In addition, they are said to be shipping large quantities of war materials from their Norwegian garrisons to the German homeland.

Retreat In Russia A full scale retreat by the Germans seems to be taking place along the southern front in Russia, with the growing possibility that many thousands of the nazi forces will be cut off in the Crimea and the Dnieper bulge. The nazi line lost its southern anchor point with the fall of Melitopol to the Russians. From all reports the tri-power conference in Moscow is progressing satisfactorily for all concerned. The Eden-Hull-Molitov meetings continue daily in what appears to be an atmosphere of amity. The three main Japanese bases in the northern Solomons have been knocked out of action, at least temporarily, by American air attacks.

Significantly, in the last attacks on fighter opposition rose to meet the raiders. and Cpl. Burford wanted to take a bath, or rather two baths; that is one bath ecah. That was a reason 'Jsnnfl ma BJL Bes ma 111 fpPw Vlf' 1 CP What could wa possibly say thai would add to a picture like this, except, her name is Jeanne Crain. and her address.

Bar-stow, Calif. able desire. And they wanted hot water for their baths, which likewise was reasonable. But there was no hot water. Said Burford to Dupuy, "Let there be hot water." Said Dupuy to Burford, "Aye, verily." So they built a huge fire in the furnace and the furnace heated the barracks but not the water.

FLUFF DUFF AND PIFFLE PUFF: Cpl. Mancini has returned from a furlough in New York to the splendor of Rapid City. Berg Baird are back again. "Snuggle Bunny" threatens to write for the "Thunderbird." The base theater staff informs Cpl. Ida Motolo that henceforth she will be denied admittance on a half-price ticket.

Cpl. Vernon Marvel spent an evening in the WAC day room and held, of all things, a "microphone." Cpl. Leola Plaswirth. whose secondary military occupational specialty is seeing people off, wished Pfc. Rebecca Underwood good luck, put her on the train and then hopped on after her.

Underwood and Plaswirth were selected as members of a traveling WAC recruiting team. angle. But they gradually got it trimmed so that it stopped losing altitude. By now they were down to 900 feet, and a solid wall of mountains barred the way homeward. "They flew parallel to the mountains for a long tme, but they were now miraculously gaining some altitude.

Finally, they got he thing to 1,500 feet. The lowest pass is 1,600 feet, but they came across at 1,500. Explain that if you can! Radio Tokyo stated that allied amphibious forces landed on Mono island, 30 miles south of Bougainville. There has been no confirma-j tion of that report from allied sources. Chungking dispatches stated that the Japanese have pulled up heavy artillery to blast the Chinese from the east bank of the Salween river, near the Burma border.

However, the defenders are said to be holding Riu Lupino, curvaceous younger sinter of movie Ur Ma Lupin, embarks on a screen career of her own in Columbia's forthcoming musical, "The Heat's On." Like her celebrated sister, she shares in the tradition of one of England's great theatrical families. Their daddy is the late Stanley Lupino, famous to theatre-goers on both sides of the Atlantic as Lupino Lane. fast all along the river. "Afterward the navigator said: 'If I had been on the wingtip, I could have reached the ground with my Almost Touched "And the co-pilot said: was blowing on the windshield trying to push her along. Once I almost wanted to reach a foot down and sort of walk us over the Many Kinds Of Pets Picked By Air Corps SINCE if 1879 i ERNIE FVLE'S (From Page One) ment and he accompanied us on every raid." T-Sgt.

Eldon Bates, waist gunner- "At last they were only 40 miles from home, but those 40 miles passed as if they were driving a horse and buggy. Dusk, coming down on the sandy haze, made the vast, flat desert an indefinite thing, made one oasis look exactly like another. "But they knew when they were another 20 miles. Then a single German fighter appeared. Its guns did great damage to the already wounded plane, but simply couldn't knock it out of the air.

Falling Fast 'Finally, this fighter ran out of ammunition and left. Our boys were alone now with their grave troubles. engineer: "We purchased a monkey in London and called him When Flak' first came into the outfit he vas a little devil, but through GI fraternity we finally calmed him down. He couldn't get along with leave our rations around. He Servicemen are Always Welcome at the First National! Airbase Office Next Door to Finance Bldg.

I Two engines were gone, most of the guns were out of commission, and they were still more than 400 miles from home. The radio was STATE 223 26c TODAT and WEDNESDAY Dangerous Blondes Allen Joslyn Evelyn Keyes Edmund Lowe out. They were losing altitude 500 feet a minute. "When they were down to 2,000 feet, the pilot consulted his crew. Did they want to jump? They all said they would ride the stricken plane as long as it was in the air.

"The pilot decided to keep going. Mountain Wall The ship was completely out of trim, cocked over at a terrible When a "feller" needs a friend in the combat zone the friend might be anything from an Arabian dog to a French boy. Six veteran over-was combateers at the Rapid City army air base tell of six species of "combat mascots" who shared in both their thrills and their lives. S-Sgt. Joseph G.

Leonard, engineer-gunner, tells of a "snuff hound" they had at Moresby by the name of "Sneezer." "She was a very nice little mongrel, but she was always sneezing. She gave us three more mascots, Sneezer, Ttjo' and 'Sitting She had quite a few flying hours. Between Sneezes "Sneezer didn't like Aussies and natives. She used to snap at them between sneezes- trying to chase them out of the camp." "In North Africa," said T-Sgt. J.

Daly, B-25 bombardier and gunner, "we had a goat mascot by the name of She slept in a sergeant's bed one night, so we ate her. She made good stew." Rabbit Pet T-Sgt. James J. Farrell, top turret gunner-engineer: "Yep, we had what you might call a self-appointed mascot in North Africa. A rabbit came in our tent one night.

Couldn't get rid of him for a month. The rabbit would civilians or women. We couldn't come in and lay on the bunk. Wc would throw him out and tell him to get the heck away, but he always came back. "A tent full of offijers across the area had a whole menagerie," con THUR.

THRU SAT. Singing Star KENNY BAKER in Doughboys In Ireland First National Bank1 particularly went for cheese, chewing gum and candy. He had a pal and compatriot, a black shepard dog called 'Sad If any strange dog or cat came into the area 'Flak' would try to chase him out. If he failed 'Sad Sack' would join him in the fray. They made a good combat team.

"One time 'Flak' got in the officer's barracks and tore things up. They threatened to have him executed, but 'Flak' was such a good little egg he finally won them back over on his side. "He loved to fly, but it scared him quite a bit. He would climb up to the waist window and stick his bean out and the slip stream would catch him and almost pull his head off. He would duck back in, grab his nose and sneeze.

Then he would climb upon someone's shoulder and chatter for sympathy in their ear. 'Flak' flew in the world's largest bombers, came back to the states in one of the world's largest ocean going vessels, to the world's largest city. New York City. He is living there now with our crew chief." S-Sgt. Richard M.

Hasbrouck, ball NEXT SUN. WED. The Truth About the Japs! Behind the Rising Sun with TOM NEAL and MARGO OP TIB BLACK MILLS ians am tus sitewoee imi iouicmi Net iMiNts iruisn irmuis imt saiisssaej sis muw vm NoiTHwtit iMMMauno MMKI Mill hum mun (MKIbtiOa DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE SCORE IS? WATCH THE FOOTBALL SCOREBOARD AT THE BRASS RAIL BAR LOUNGE 624 ST. JOE "Owl Motto" SERVICE-QUALITY-PRICE We are doing the best we can to serve you and usually do not spend more than one-fourth of our time telling the customers "we don't have it." Military Clothing and Supplies OPEN FROM 7 A. M.

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RUSHMORE MOTEL A home away from home. A flood bod and a quiet place to sloop. Rooms Apartments By DAY or WEEK REASONABLE RATES Phone 1450 2nd It tt. Joe tinued Farrell. "They had chickens, durks.

dogs, a goat and a donkey. After they had eaten everything but the rings and the donkey our rabbit disappeared." T-Sgt Anthony Santoro. gunner-engineer, tells of "Butch," a little stuffed dog covered with rabbit fur Ptt Him "Wc used to pet 'Butch' for luck before we took off. He was lucky all right he carried us all through the war without a scratch. He belonged to our radio man: a present from his girl friend.

He used to hang 'Butch' in the radio compart- RAPID CITY 513 ST. JOE.