The Daily Alaska empire Newspaper, February 8, 1945, Page 5

THURSDAY, T slacdai | P SR— N - Jels lelebrate BOY SCOUT WEEK | FEBRUARY B-14 "SCOUTS OF THE W | BROTHERS TOGETHER" | tricks with paper, quizzes, funny aimed at consolidating the founda- DE“S BEG'N woRK | all these will never grow tions for final victory, while the | stories, old. American withdrawal to Bataan in 0“ pROJE(]‘S A‘l‘ Closing The Meeting—Time for 1942 was a desperate move to stave FIRSI MEE]‘I NGS you' care to).). The living icircle as tended for home consumption. i Mother should' tonfer a few minutes and get it in the hands of the Cub- TENI polEs : . - arily ‘appointed until satisfactory day afternoon and evening, Cub- €T “r:oumles:; times in striking camp day. He also said more parents BIG THREE |the Quartermaster Corps, The new hopes to have a full complement of | 3 |tion,” is a far departure from the bing program is taking hold is that| and separate; section three may be | These projects will be displayed at = 7 to section three, ad infinitum. the next regular monthly Pack | They are not hooked together by on how to conduct a meeting: | . .e 4 Bejore 7he aeeting starts—ne|(all for American Parfici- nad to set up » shelter tent—or 4 5 5 to take it down—knows how much pation in Coming Euro- should: decide a course of action to| ..follow before the meeting acLuaUvé Another advantage ‘which should ese problems we refer to are those Thyecs filfnis forsa joint political ac~ NEW-tybe pole welgh! slightly - more relative to whatever the Den has tjon in Europe are expected here than half as mucH as the old three- Calling for active American par- weighed 'fyom 147 Winile gPhe Cubs'Gather—Get the ticipation in the European . settle- new one Weighs ¥ «4ng. about.the worf(, Continue this{ _The plans are-being worked out to use. until all have arrived . (usually the py president Franklin D. Roosevelt,l The new type pole’s sections will The Opening—Roll call, then a yell now believed to be at least half fin § = . ¥ ot = bl " the maintenance factor, it is expect- or a song that the boys have made jshed with their confer i . P g y ished with their conference, being ed, will be reduced by more than check on Achievements to see how o allow Stalin to continue his close| ! iy many Cubs have passed Achieve-|supervision of the Red Army invas-|intricate folding principle which it was designed. Since both couragement here and there about| : each ones’ particular test. j Aps S AY 'HEY ‘virtualy split-proof. o The junction points on the new Mother will be taxed to the limit to maintain order and progress. A tions together, the only contact will be metal to metal. The steel is and directed into some phase of the work. Mothers d - %, 09 RO appre: or the use of triangular punches which drive a portion of the metal permit them to get in the habit of | doing such things. | (B i i v _Associated Press) J Japan cannot afford to lose the |finish, a factor in eamouflaging |from the air or from the ground, Liven their interest and stimulate| “The Luzon battle is being fought | Cubbing experience is that which Yamashita can depend upon the he has learned. As one has Wi&e-‘Japanese Navy to protect his flanks | ALLENTOWN, Pa.—William Klas- sen would rather plan a meal for a any announcements—then your clos- | off final defeat. | explained in the handboek is gogod ey ignion, Second of Gatherings Are avout te next weeks meeting and master. The second Den:meeting for che! grouping arrangements can be PRI R D 0 wid will welcome the newly developed -were signing up to be Den Mocthe ipole, designated in Army termi- leaders soon. 2 ' plANS ARE fold issue pole for shelter tents. already two of the Cens have begun | attached to section one; section two weeking, ey added. | hinges, sliding sleeves, or other Den Chief will want to talk over the this will facilitate erection—or pean Seftlements. starts but the Cubs should be| give heart to the soldier' is that chy 88 jts project or part in '-heiwuhln a we | section-jointed . job. ‘The old one Cubs interested in the project they ments they mark the beginning of a It will take up less space in the Cub will take pride in his Den and pritjsh Prime Minister! Winston pe made of light-weight woods, such up or like to use. some 3 held somewhere on the Black Sea. 50 per cent, since the old type was ments during the week—perhaps she | jon of Germany. ;ends of the new-type pole are tion of the meeting that the in- ‘rolled steel (28 gauge), in such a progress is measured by how quick- | !ance, and the ferrules are secured vive as Nafion If for a gym or a free for all. Nor| % The new pole is painted olive If some bring their particular lections to work on—let them. Oth-vive as a nation, Domei, Japanese . them to action by suggestions. Itsito determine whether Japan is to | ussy 'ner out generouly the pats on the back. in world affairs, and she must| ly put it, “it is not what the boy and keep him in operational con- | United States President than try to he’s done both. It's the lesser lights board does to the boy.” {to the south. The meeting would not be com-? “If he plans to retire to the plete without a game or two and southern part of Luzon, the Japa- perhaps a few stunts. Adults still nese withdrawal should be con- ing ceremony (devise your.own if/ The broadcast was evidently in- | after The Meeting—Chler dnd 5 make out a report of the meeting! to Be Held Next Mon- At present Dens age only tempor-' Cub Scouts will be held next Mon-| Worked out by parents and Cubmas-|Gd’s who have skinned knuckles master Ray Adams announced to- g wood tentpole now being issued by and Fathers every day now, and he Inolgy as the “pole, tent, single sec- “A healthy sign that our Cub- Its sections are interchangeable projects,” the Cubmaster stated.| Ex p E ( TE D He gives the followin, inters g okihg . po ) moving parts. Any soldier who has problems they wili encounter. They | striking—of the shelter tent. “#ljen a, ghance o O. K. the choice.| washington, Feb., 8.The Big 'he three seperate sections of the t ! fortheominig Pack meeting. g: ounces; the i #-gre undertaking by reading or talk-|new period in U. S. foreign policy.'soldier’s pack, besides being easier be early rather than late). |Churchill, and Premier Josef Stalin, a5 yellow poplar and spruce, and Den Business—Den Mother can'They ar ting ssi They are meeting on Russian sofl oo 5 By in S P YT the or the chief can add a word of en-' e | protected with steel ferrules, it is Den Activities—It is in this por-, . |pole are drawn from flat, cold- genuity of both the Chief and the ‘fashlon that, in putting the sec- stepping stone toward this goal of PH“-IPP'NE WAR‘ qryesr ho ist- 17" rocigh HoBSIHg 646 ‘b6, fipped. off S Ni 0 NO' to Sur phosphate coated for rust resist. ayS pp ns to the wood by means of “staking,” cite having their homes being used is it good training for the boys to| Batle Lost | nartte -wobd-Eurc SN |drab; -the old one, natural wood models of airplanes or stamp col-|battle of the Philippines and sur- . | Quartermaster Corps officers said. ers will want to work on the project. | news agency, said in a broadcast. | | their project—you steer them—hnnd‘survive and play the leading role What sticks with a boy through his snatch victory in this way. Gen.| I T h N ' does to the board, but what the tact with the Japanese-held islands | ) . | please the average fussy diner—and p_lay “Simmon says thumbs up",‘sldered a strategic re-alignment, THE DAILY ALASKA EMPIRE— JUNEAU, ALASKA Ador Weds Chicagoan fliers knocked out a third of the| Japanese air force in China in De- cember—83 planes in combat and 158 on the ground. Their record: | Against shipping, 14th Liberators and Mitchells and fighter-bombers sank, probably sank or damaged more than a million and a half tons of Japancse shipping through Sep- | tember, 1944. The 1l4th estimates & | that for cvery ton of bombs it drops on Japanese shipping it sinks or damages 482 tons. This includes ev- erything from canal junks to ocean freighters. Outside this figure are warships like destroyers and light cruisers. Long Reach Used The Flying Tiger has a long reach. One day it will be knocking out a |bridge and turinel way up in north |China to block shipment of scarce coal to Japan’s war indus- tri. The next it will be hitting vice-junks and freighters off the French Indo-China coast. Impor- | | tant bridges all over occupied China | | are repeatedly blasted Oil install- | ations and docks up and down the angtre have been bombed and bur- | The 14th knocked out fil)I FRIMAK IThd/7iAMY 18— WRIAAY] 2RMTNRY 18— Japanese locomotives in November one, and 56 in the single week of December 7-13 For a long time the 14th used P-405, mostly, for fighters. They flew high and relied on tight team- work to combat the highly maneuv- erable Zeros. More recently has been flying in the 14th, and the accent has turned noticeably to low- er-level fighting concentrated on knocking out the Japanese air force. Three-Day Record In three days the 14th fliers knocked out 69 Japanese planes at nan, in Shantung province They hit Hankow, the great base in central China, and destroyed 88 Japanese planes. During the ummer while the Jap- anese were winning the long new corridor across south China, the 14th flew the first considerable air support Chinese ground troops ever had. One officer reports they “For on end flew through non-operational weather, took off in rainstorms that screened the ends of the runways, battled fog weeks the P-51 Mustang a VRTOAK, DR 18— PAGE FIVE and (weather) fronts and 100-foot ceilings, and twisted their way up tivers and vall to find and laughter enemy columns. ‘The P-40s and Mustangs of Col. David “Tex” Hill's group flew 8 10 missions a day from rain- soaked fields, with many pilots aver- 3 and 4 missionas a day for a at a stretch On® squadron flew 47 missions in less than 3 weeks, Was shot down twice, ran back to safety across the battle- filed with Japanese patrols at his heels, then shot down 3 Japanese planes in a single flight over Heng- yang Gen that on wel leade 'nnault says he thinks the basis of results per plane, his air force is the most de- structive in t Japanese pla in combat in December a single American plane He says that all the Japanese planes being destroyed everywhere ¥ exceed the most authoritative stimates of Japanese plane produc- tion, CI c that's why they're not re- piacing their plane losses in China. THE “BATTLE” OF AGAR-AGAR Here's Thrilling Story of How American Scientists Cracked Japanese Monopoly d 7.5 ounces. |’ upon | r-old character actor from Hollywood, casts a side-long glance at his bride-to- be, Mrs. Loretta McGowan Becker, 46, cf Chicago as they applied for a marriage license at Las Vegas, Nev. They were wed shertly after Becker. (AP Wirephoto) "~ AMMUNITION FOR THE MORALE TANK-DESTROYING YANKS of the welcome to their first cigarette ratil Jaeger, Chicago, Signal Corps pho | ot Troy, Kan., kisses his cartor. "Ot g « Portland, Ore.; Cpl. Earl Pitts, Coffeyville, Kan.; she obtained a divorce from D. W. 24th Division in Belgium give a big on in weeks. Cpl. Mike Speaks (left) hers are (1. to r.): Pfe. J. C. Wilcox, and Pfc. Stewart 0. (International) |trying to look important who make things tough for a head waiter, Klassen concludes after 43 years in |which he’s arranged dinners for at least a million people. He planned banquets for Theodor |Roosevelt, Willlam Howard Taft, | Woodrow Wilson, Warren G. Hard- ing and Calvin Coolidge. Presidents {and governors aren't hard-boiled customers, says Klassen. You can | | By JAMES D. WHITE WASHINGTON — Our smallest air force, the 14th, is the worm in Japan’s biggest apple. Maj. Gen, Claire L. Chennault’s Flying Tigers operaie on a trans- Himalayan shoestring, fly in “im- possible” weather from the Great Wall 2,000 miles south to Saigon, live off the country and impress Itheir few visitors with their incom- parable morale. If they are not primarily re- sponsible for it, they have tipped the balance in China from compiete Japanese victory to widespread Japanese frustration, ;flyihg Tigers Have Tough Time Going place soup-to-nuts before dyed-in- | | the-wool notables and then relax. ——e,—— i 1 BOLSHANINS VISIT | | My, and Mrs. N. k. Bolshanin, of | Sitka, are visiting in Juneau today | | while the North Sea is in port. He | lis a deputy customs collector at ‘Sitka and has been out on leave. | —_——————— { | Empire Want-ads bring resulls!} Against Japanl ) | | | i i | i i | | No Japanese boat, train, truck | convoy, bridge or marching’column in China is safe from them. Tigers At Work | This summer the Japanese laun-| ched the biggest military drive in/ their history. The 14th went to| work, and today the results of that| drive can be counted only in long-| er gnd more exposed Japanese sup-, !ply lines. The Japanese knocked out 14th air bases, but the 14th Tig- gers keep on coming with .50 caliber claws flailing the air. ‘They still operate from some bases east of the new Japanese corridor through south China. | Chennault estimates that his On Vital Life-Saving Medical Material PRECIOUS SEAWEED—A! left, Prof. Cornelius Kreke and Dr. George Speri Sperti (right) examine a same' ' ple specimen of seaweed brought aboard their floating laboratory. At right, a flotilla of ‘barges.’ loaded down with the seaweed bring their life-giving cargo into shore for processing ‘into agar-agar By HENRY C. NICHOLAS WASHINGTON—When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and advanced over the South Pa- cific area, they not only largely cut off the supply of crude rubber but at the same time obtained a strangle hold on the health of the American nation. For a breath- less period of some months this couniry was confronted by a menace more serious than any of the results of our early naval and military defeats. How American scientists broke this strangle hold on the health of the American nation, and de- stroyed what might have been the most deadly secret military weapon of Japan, is one of the great achievements of World War IL Prior to this global war the gen- eral public knew little of that strange substance known as agar- agar. About all the average lay- man knew was that it was bene- ficial in the treatment of consti- pation, served as a food in soups and jellies in the Orient, and that it was a gelatinous substance ob- tained from certain seaweeds found in the waters around the coasts of Japan. Medical science, however, had long been aware of the value of agar-agar in maintaining the iealth of civilized nations. Choice Food of Bacteria It is of vital importance to every bospital and biological laboratory in the world. Owing to its com- °x mixture of protein and car- hohydrates, agar-agar is the choice food of bacteria of every form. On it colonies of bacteria feed wnd develop in an amazing man- ner, thus enabling doctors to quickly and accurately diagnose the disease with which they are confronted. Its use has made pos- sible the quickest and most ac- curate diagnostic system known to the medical world. Agar-agar 19 used in quickly de- tecting scarlet fever, typhoid, gon- crrhea, streptococcus infections, and it is imperative in the creation of vaccines against bubonic plague, cholera, whopping cough, dysen- tary, and for testing drinking water and other liquids. When the shortage of -this strange substance developed in this global war, there were alarmed ientists who declared that unless a large supply could be quickly obtained medical practice would be thrown back to the dark days of the Middle Ages. The production of agar-agar had become an important industry in Japan long before the founding of the United States of America. As early as 1716 that nation was systematically exploring the for- ests and jungles of the ocean floor gearching for the seaweeds that would yield this unique substdnce. At the outbreak of World War I1 there were something like 500 factorfes in Japan producing more than 95 per cent of the world sup- ply of this vital laboratory prod- uct. The war awakéned the civilized nations to the realization of the terrible blunder they had made in allowing Japan to obtain a monop- oly of agar-agar. They faced a terrible threat to their national heaith. Russia was in desperate need of a million pounds a year and the United States needed an even larger amount. England was in a similar situation. Medical scientists were aghast at the realization they had only a small and dwindling supply of the substance on which they were de- pendent for quickly preventing the outbreak of plagues and serious epidemics. The American scientist who was the first to accept this Japanese challenge to our national health was Dr. George, Speri Spertj, di- rector of the Institutum Divi Thomae, known as The Athenaeum of Ohio. ‘With the parent laboratories in Cincinnati, a marine biclogical re- search laboratory in Palm Beach, this network has branch labora- tories located in colleges and hos- pitals scattered throughout the United States. Dr. Sperti held a conference in September, 1942, with some hun- dred sclentists whose work he di- rects. At this meeting he out- lined the seriousness of the situa- tion, and pointed out the vital im- portance to the health of our armed forces and the nation that the species of seaweed from which agar-agar could be processed be discovered as quickly as possible. Dr. Sperti stated he had selected the coastal waters of Florida as the field where the ocean floor was to be explored. To do this field work and to save precious time, Dr. Sperti was sup- plied with a floating laboratory 78 feet long with an 18-foot bow com- pletely outfitted with scientific re- search apparatus. With this float- ing laboratory it was possible. to carry on extensive chemical opera- tions hundreds of miles from the American coast. Thae introduction of this labora- tory was quickly followed by sen- sational results. No less than 10 species of seaweed yielding a rich golatinous substance capable of being processed into agar-agar were discovered. With these dis- coveries the first problem of the Japanese challenge had been met. There now remained the prob- lem of finding an efficient method of quickly processing the gelati- nous substance of these seaweeds into agar-agar. 1 Little was known about the manufacturing methods used by the Japanese, which they had guarded as carefully as some vital military secret. About all that was known was that it took them six .months to prodace agar-agar. Even if the Japanese methods of processing agar-agar had been known to Dr. Sperti and his fel- low scientists it would have been of little value to them. The situ- ation had become critical. ‘The supply of agar-azar in this country was nearing exhaustion and hospitals and laboratories were clamoring for a supply. Some means of producing agar-agar in a much shorter time than that of| the Japanese was imperative. i American mass methods were applied and again scored a victory. Seaweed was gathered from t! ocean floor, loaded in barge flotillas and towed to the weed docks. There they were unloaded into washeries and freed from the u" animals which live and feed on lha‘ weed. The washed seaweed was; then hauled to drying fields for drying and bleaching ‘under the intense Florida sun. Great Scientific Victory 5 The dry seaweed was then boiled and the gelatinous substance, after filtering, was poured into trays. After the jellying process had started the trays were frozen. In| subsequent melting the water con-{ tent drained away, leaving the! agar-agar as a residue, ‘ ‘The day the first strip was shipped by air marked the collapse of the Japanese threat against thef health of the American nation. It represented one of the great scien- tific victories in this war. ' Through the use of American mass methods it was found that! agar-agar could be processed in! the astonishing time of four days, as compared with the six-month period in Japan. What was of greater importance was that this American product was found by hospitals and labora~ tories, in this country and England and Russia, to be of higher quality and purity than the Japanese agar-agar, The first shipment of this agar- agar to Russia is sald to have been received with greater enthusiasm! by that country than were the' tanks and airplanes which were carried on the same ship. Y