No Private War
Sirs:
Marines have been keeping plenty of sand spits free of vermin since this war started. Your comments relative to the Pacific often refer to "Midway still holding out," etc. What the hell do you think is going on, a private war on Midway? Look at some of the other spots on your map for an idea occasionally.
F. B. LOOMIS JR.
U.S. Marine Corps Johnston Island
Groans
Sirs:
. . . Although the article [Sport: "Unlucky Joe," TIME, May 11] makes it appear that no attention was paid to Joe Platak because "he's just a handball player" we were told on good authority at the Great Lakes Naval Station that at the time of the [handball] championships Platak was in the midst of the three-week detention period required of all enlisted men in the Navy which is "necessary to prevent the spread of any infectious disease." Had Mr. Platak chosen to participate in the championships, it would have been necessary for him to begin his detention period all over again on returning to the station.
J. LYMAN BINGHAM Assistant to the President Amateur Athletic Union of the United States Chicago, Ill.
Sirs:
. . . Had Unlucky Joe the foresight to join the Army instead of the Navy his genius would have been recognized, because here in the nation's capital, most of the top-ranking Army officers are creditable handball players, and no national championship tournament is ever held without some of them being in enthusiastic attendance. Judging from the number of high-ranking Army officers who play the game, they must regard handball not only as one of the best conditioners but definitely a stimulus of the competitive instinct upon which the generalship of the military strategist depends. Those who have seen Unlucky Joe Platak defend his title will appreciate TIME'S apt comparison to Joe Louis. Both are veritible tigers of energy and courage. Perhaps TIME'S article will get Unlucky Joe out of the Great Lakes scullery and place him in a service commensurate with his exceptional talents.
THOMAS E. MATTINGLY, M.D. Washington, D.C.
Lost in the Shuffle
Sirs:
Re your article under Science (TIME, May 11) I meekly suggest that Director Henry Askew Barton of the American Institute of Physics and that the National Academy of Sciences canvass the rolls of the U.S. Army's enlisted men. There they will find the many graduate chemists and physicists who are so badly needed for research in all war work.
As a graduate chemist, who had only a small sum of industrial research work before being drafted over a year ago, and who finds his specialized knowledge and training of little value as a soldier in the Army, I feel somewhat qualified to make such a suggestion. . . .
Men who have set aside their lives for science are introverts by nature: silent, serious, inquisitive men. As a rule we do not make good leaders of others and well do we know that now. We end up in the Army as clerks, orderlies, and in a hundred other positions that anyone without our special knowledge and training could adequately fill.
Even the ballplayers, screen actors and singers have the chance to follow their own particular talents in the service, but chemists and physicists become basic men. Who will say that they are more important than the scientists for the promotion of all war work?
Corporal, U.S. Army Fort Sam Houston, Tex.
Sirs:
I am a mechanical engineer, and a reserve officer, called to active duty on a "quota" and sent as No. so-and-so to a command which required so many officers. I am assigned to a duty for which I have had no training, for which I am by nature not particularly fitted and which the lower ranking officers under me could do as well or better. In other words, I'm "lost" in the Army, beyond the reach of the Army's classification system. . . .
It is very, very painful to sit here month after month and read in TIME and elsewhere of the need for engineering talent, and it is a severe strain on my patriotism to be forced to do nothing and not like it, while I could be accomplishing something and deriving a great joy from helping to get this thing over with. .
Panama Canal Zone
Praise for Buck
Sirs:
JUST READ ARTICLE IN TIME [MAY 4] CONCERNING GENE BUCK AND ASCAP SOCIETY. YOU MIGHT HAVE SAFELY ADDED TO THIS ARTICLE THE FACT THAT WITHOUT GENE BUCK THROUGHOUT THE PAST 17 YEARS THERE WOULD HAVE BEEN NO ASCAP SOCIETY. . . . BUCK HAS BEEN THE UNUSUAL COMBINATION OF A MAN MAKING A LONG GALLANT FIGHT FOR BOTH THE BIG AND LITTLE FELLOWS AT THE SAME TIME; THE BIG AND LITTLE FELLOWS MEANING, OF COURSE, THE PUBLISHERS AND WRITERS. ... I ALSO FEEL THAT DEEMS TAYLOR WILL AGREE WITH ME.
GEORGE M. COHAN Monroe, N.Y.
Spending v. Income
Sirs:
Instead of enforced saving based on income as a means of checking inflation why not enforced saving based on spending. The basic idea: require that every time one spends a dollar he must purchase a dollar's worth of defense stamps.
HOWARD P. MILLEVILLE Chemical Engineering & Development Division U.S. Department of Agriculture Philadelphia, Pa.
Ladies & Machines
Sirs: ... I am particularly interested in the article "Women & Machines" (TIME, May 11) because I have two friends working in the Ford Bomber Plant at Willow Run, one as an inspector of small parts and the other as a supervisor of sewing on wing fabric.
Their worst problem is finding a place to live. At first they shared a room in Ypsilanti but that was unsatisfactory, and they found it difficult to get proper food, so they are now staying at home in Detroit and going back and forth each day--66 miles of travel.
They have been interested and sometimes amused at the regulations imposed on women workers. At first they were not allowed to go anywhere in the plant alone--even to the washrooms they had to go two by two. One day the order came through that all women in the office and factory must appear in slacks the next morning. The small Ypsilanti stores were sold out in a half hour, and the color and fit of some of the slacks bought in a hurry were weird and wonderful. There is also a ban on pullover sweaters.
One of the girls has just spent a week on the "graveyard shift." She has stood it very well and was able to adjust her sleeping habits quickly. In fact, she found it rather novel and exciting to work at night. . . . HELEN I. BEACH
Beach Publishing Co.
Detroit, Mich.
Green Bowlers
Sirs: Re the article "Old School Ties" [TIME, May 11]. . . . In 17 years in the naval service I have never heard of the "Green Bowlers" nor of the system purported to be founded by them. Is it sophistry to argue that the high percentage of Naval Academy officers selected by boards simply reflects the very real value of the four years at the Academy dedicated to no other end but creating a naval officer of raw material . . . ? ARTHUR S. HILL Lieut. Commander, U.S. Navy U.S. Naval Air Station Pensacola, Fla.
Sirs: ... I was a Green Bowler myself and it was only a sort of kids' club . . . and I never saw that it had the slightest bearing in any way on one's life or career in the service afterwards. I was shipmate later with lots of Green Bowlers who never paid any more attention to me than to anyone else. I was, as nearly as I could find out, one of the large majority of ordinary officers in my class--neither outstanding nor below average--whose promotion is a matter of luck, and I was passed over three times. If there was anything to your theory, I should have been promoted. . . .
Out of about 20 Green Bowlers in my class at the Academy, as near as I can figure from going over the list of my classmates who are still in the regular line and have been promoted in the regular course, there are only four Green Bowlers among them left. . ..
Green Bowler*
San Francisco, Calif.
Sirs: ... I belonged to G.B., or the Green Bowl Club, entering in 1908. It was started by a small group in the class of 1909, in order to rent a room in the town of Annapolis where the members might have a drink and a smoke in comfortable surroundings. There was nothing "top-flight" about these kids, except that they were sons of gentlemen.
Many of them bilged, or failed to graduate! Each class thereafter took in from six to twelve members--no more. Other clubs formed, were broken up by the authorities' raids upon them. Green Bowl escaped, and the only thing secret about it was its exact whereabouts. The room was reached by a devious alley between two houses.
The purpose of G.B. was to have a lot of fun, and we certainly had it. One member of 1909 got to be an admiral, and none of 1910, at least four being retired as commanders before reaching the rank of captain.
As for the serious purpose of G.B., it was announced that we should try to keep bright the honor and traditions of the Navy; urge gentlemen's sons to enter Annapolis; reverence women; and NEVER show official favoritism toward a G.B. on selection boards or otherwise. We lived up to those ideals.
Amongst the alumni there was but one official, appointed to keep the lists, and to add new names as a class graduated. The undergraduates were thus known to but one man, in order that a G.B. graduate might not, as an instructor at the Academy, show any favoritism or its contrary to a G.B. student.
Gradually, like all good things, it came to an end, and no more names have been added to the lists for the last three years. I ought to know, for I kept the lists.
Classes previous to the class of 1909 never heard of Green Bowl, and there is but one admiral in the Navy who ever belonged to it.
Sirs:
. . . TIME, May 11: "Only some 50% of all Navy officers are Annapolis graduates, [but] Annapolis men dominate most Selection Boards." Someone has been pulling your leg, or the person who quoted you the figures is deliberately creating a false impression.
I do not have at hand the 1941 Navy Register, but I believe that the proportions in the 1940 Register are substantially the same, except for some 350 naval aviators appointed into the regular Navy from the Naval Reserve during the fiscal year 1941, most of them in the grades of lieutenant (junior grade) and ensign. . . . The figures as of July 1, 1940 . . . [indicate] that Academy graduates number 94.9% of all line officers.
If your figure of 50% was arrived at by including all Naval Reserve officers on active duty, it is probably nearly correct, although more likely on the high side, I think. BUT--Naval Reserve officers do not compete for selection for promotion against regular Navy officers, but only among themselves. Separate selection boards are designated to consider regulars and reserves. . . .
MARK H. JORDAN Lieutenant (C.E.C.), U.S.N. Troy, N.Y.
Sirs:
. . .If there has been any "Old School Tie" discrimination, at least in the last six or seven years, it has been by one wearer of the tie against another. . . .
The Selection Board is sworn to consider only the officer's record. It is not possible to convene a board for the lower grades personally acquainted with more than a few of the officers concerned. The selection is made by comparing the records of the respective candidates.
Many times, perfectly capable officers are passed over. However if only 50 promotions are to be made from a group of 100 officers, those will be selected who have been, in the opinion of their commanding officers, above average in their capabilities and performance of duty. That does not mean that the others are not good officers, they are just not the best available. . . .
So far no better test has been found of an officer's fitness than the opinion of his brother officers. .
-- TIME'S article on the Navy promotion system drew a number of letters from officers ranking all the way from lieutenant to admiral, most of them supporting the Navy's present promotion system. TIME prints several of them above (signatures mostly omitted by request) in order to give a fair sample of the Navy's point of view.
On some points TIME patently erred, but the Green Bowlers did exist (many Navy men to the contrary), even if they weren't sinister.--ED.
*Name withheld by request.
*Name withheld by request.
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